This Strategic Plan outlines and advances the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) approach to building a national drought early warning system, providing relevant and usable drought information services across timescales, and incorporating feedback and participation of NIDIS’s partners across sectors and levels of government. This Plan presents an expanded set of priorities for the five years 2022-2026, identified through consultative engagement with Federal, tribal, state, and local partners, in order to better understand drought impacts to the economy, ecosystems, public health, and the interactions of drought and forest fires in specific locations. The Strategic Plan involves the following sectors with targeted interventions and decisions: agriculture, with timing and amount of irrigation; forest and wildlife, with fire response and suppression activities; water, with reservoir management, water quality analysis, river and lake access, updating water plans and issuance of water permits; public health, with heat, smoke, and dust event monitoring, and preparedness for increased illness and disease; transportation, with waterways and ports access and navigation planning; energy, with alternative water supply decisions, electricity generation and infrastructure planning. The Strategic Plan defines the following strategic goals in order to achieve its mission of maximising the nation’s ability to proactively manage drought related risks, by providing the necessary information and resources to assess the potential and the effects of drought: 1) support and facilitate improvements to drought forecasts and predictions across all time scales, to provide the best early warning information for a wide range of decision makers and audiences; 2) strengthen observational networks and drought indicators to improve the monitoring of drought conditions; 3) improving the quality and use of information to improve drought planning and preparedness; 4) delivering the best available scientific information to increase drought awareness; 5) integrating interdisciplinary research to improve risk assessments, decision-based applications and actions; 6) increasing collaborations that foster the exchange of information, practices, and lessons to improve drought early warning.
Соединенные Штаты Америки · 2022-08-01