Our Work Consensus/Advisory Activity The Future of Drought in the United States

The Future of Drought in the United States

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Any project, supported or not by a committee, that is currently being worked on or is considered active, and will have an end date.

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Infrastructure and the Built Environment

Data and Statistics

Agriculture and Natural Resources

Environment and Biology

This consensus study committee will consider approaches to understanding and assessing drought in the United States. This review will encompass data sources, metrics, and indicators for characterizing drought in the context of changing drought baselines and trends. The committee will recommend a framework for incorporating non-stationarity considerations into drought assessment in a changing climate, for use across a range of geographic regions and of spatial and temporal scales and to inform decision-making for short-term risk management and long-term adaptation.

About Past Events

Description

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will convene an ad hoc committee to consider approaches for future drought characterization, assessment, and response.
More specifically, the study will:

Discuss the drought-to-aridification continuum and differentiate among drought, multidecadal drought, and aridification. How do factors such as periods of record, drought type, regionality, and seasonality affect these classifications? How do current periods of record affect drought outlooks and predictions?
Evaluate data sources currently used for drought assessment. What data will be needed to address non-stationarity? What methodologies can be used to improve future drought assessment, taking into account non-stationarity?
Discuss metrics and indicators used in drought assessment and identify opportunities to inform decision making, including increasing integration of non-stationarity and incorporating uncertainty and/or confidence.
Review existing and emerging approaches, both nationally and globally, for incorporating non-stationarity in drought assessment. Are some approaches more appropriate for specific regions and/or time periods?

The committee will recommend a framework for incorporating non-stationarity considerations into drought assessment, for use across a range of geographic regions and of spatial and temporal scales.

Meetings