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Despite the devastating impacts of droughts, the United States lacks a national drought plan. This leaves states to address droughts in water, hazard, and stand-alone plans which are designed to reduce drought vulnerability and to prepare government, industry, and society to cope with the impacts. Yet, there is limited empirical research that evaluates the comprehensiveness of these plans, specifically in terms of whether they include preparedness and mitigation measures or triggers for action and response. To fill this gap, this study's first aim was to establish an evaluation framework based on principles from the drought mitigation literature. The study then evaluated 171 state-level plans with the framework, and simultaneously collected interview data to contextualize the results. In a final step, the scores were employed in a statistical analysis of whether states with higher physical exposure to drought have more comprehensive planning. The study finds states that have experienced more frequent and severe drought plan more comprehensively, suggesting that the occurrence of drought may be an intrinsic driver for planning. The study concludes that planning and preparing for droughts is a necessary but complex undertaking requiring interdisciplinary, interagency efforts that the U.S.' decentralized, federalist political system is suited to address. If generalization is warranted, the results suggest that the physical occurrence of drought can act as a policy catalyst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State climatologists and other expert drought observers have speculated about the value of monitoring Twitter for #drought and related hashtags. This study statistically examines the relationships between the rate of tweeting using #drought and related hashtags, within states, accounting for drought status and news coverage of drought. We collected and geolocated tweets, 2017-18, and used regression analysis and a diversity statistic to explain expected and identify unexpected volumes of tweets. This provides a quantifiable means to detect state-weeks with a volume of tweets that exceeds the upper limit of the prediction interval. To filter out instances where a high volume of tweets is related to the activities of one person or very few people, a diversity statistic was used to eliminate anomalous state-weeks where the diversity statistic did not exceed the 75th percentile of the range for that state's diversity statistic. Anomalous state-weeks in a few cases preceded the onset of drought but more often coincided with or lagged increases in drought. Tweets are both a means of sharing original experience and a means of discussing news and other recent events, and anomalous weeks occurred throughout the course of a drought, not just at the beginning. A sum-to-zero contrast coefficient for each state revealed a difference in the propensity of different states to tweet about drought, apparently reflecting recent and long-term experience in those states, and suggesting locales that would be most predisposed to drought policy innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring global food and water security requires a detailed understanding of how coupled socio-environmental systems respond to drought. Using the Platte River Watershed in Nebraska (USA) as an exemplar mixed urban-agricultural watershed, we quantify biophysical response to drought in urban (Lincoln NE) and agricultural systems alongside a qualitative analysis of governance response and adaptive capacity of both sectors. Synthesis of results highlights parallels and discontinuities between urban and agricultural preparations for and response to drought. Whereas drought prompted an increase in well installations and expansion of water-intensive crops, e.g., corn, in the agricultural sector, outdoor water use restrictions rapidly curtailed water withdrawals in the urban sector, where water conservation has gradually decoupled total withdrawals from population growth. Water governance institutions at the municipal, district, and statewide levels showed evidence of learning and adaptive management, facilitated by a shared regional identity around agriculture. We conclude that, rather than exacerbating intersectoral conflict, cities may introduce a high-value and flexible water use that can be rapidly curtailed during drought. The ability to rapidly reduce urban water use and thereby avoid limiting agricultural irrigation during drought enables cities to provide adaptive capacity in mixed urban-agricultural watersheds, particularly where crops are highly reliant on irrigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on need for more systematic efforts to collect, assess, and apply drought impacts data for monitoring drought severity. Topics discussed include media reports and reports of drought impacts information submitted directly through the website; need to identify priorities for the National Integrated Drought Information System; and efforts to build public awareness of the impact of drought.

Droughts affect recreation and tourism, grazing, forests, and timber, and can have important indirect effects for the ecosystems and species that rely on water. Despite its importance, the effect of drought in the land management sector is less understood than in other water-intensive sectors, such as agriculture and public water supplies. This study presents the first-ever estimates of the economic valuation of the information provided by the U.S. Drought Monitor using the avoided cost method. These estimates are based on the time and labor saved by using the U.S. Drought Monitor rather than compiling drought-related information from other sources, or using other sources for tracking/monitoring droughts, communicating drought conditions, and dealing with drought-related issues. The results reflect rational behavior—the more time needed to compile or collect drought information provided by the U.S. Drought Monitor, the higher the dollar value in avoided cost. This dollar amount also varies by institution and organization, which indicates respondents from different organizations value the information from the U.S. Drought Monitor differently. For example, compared to the state offices, the field offices in the Bureau of Land Management value more of the information provided by the U.S. Drought Monitor. These estimates can be used to estimate the societal benefits and help policy makers evaluate the U.S. Drought Monitor in different sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews previous efforts to assign monetary value to climatic or meteorological information, such as public information on drought, climate, early warning systems, and weather forecast information. Methods and tools that have been explored to examine the benefits of climatic and meteorological information include the avoided cost, contingent valuation, choice experiments, benefit transfer, and descriptive approaches using surveys. The second part of this paper discusses specific considerations related to valuing drought information for public health and the Bureau of Land Management. We found a multitude of connections between drought and the land management and health sectors in the literature. The majority of the papers that we summarized only report biophysical change, because the economic losses of drought are not available. Only a few papers reported economic loss associated with drought. To determine the value of drought information, we need to know more about the role it plays in decision making and what sources of drought information are used in different sectors. This inventory of methods and impacts highlights opportunities for further research in valuing drought information in land management and public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]