Untitled DocumentDrought planning and implementation in Cochise and Santa Cruz counties
Macro Theme Area:
Knowledge Transfer [Project ID: K49]
PI:
Gregg Garfin
CO-PI(s):
Michael Crimmins, Anne Browning-Aiken
Basin focus:
Regional SW
Specific area in
basin /
field sites:
N/A
Summary/Goals: This project is funded under a Center-Directed Initiatives grant through the Water Sustainability Program and reports on a fiscal year basis.
The overarching goals of the project are (1) to support the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) efforts to foster local and regional drought planning activities throughout Arizona, as recommended in the Arizona Drought Preparedness Plan, and (2) to support SAHRA's mission to help water managers and decision-makers use the best available scientific information, by assisting with capacity building to increase drought adaptation at the watershed scale.
Activities and outcomes during past year:
To date, project participants have served as consultants to and participants in the development of Arizona's Local Drought Impact Groups (LDIGs), a unique institutional mechanism to increase drought preparedness and improve the coordination between state and county drought planning. The project team has played an important role in the development of protocols for LDIG implementation, coordination of entities involved in local drought plan implementation, evaluation of the LDIG process, and development and implementation of decision support products. Moreover, the project team has helped create bridges between federal, state and local drought monitoring efforts.
Tangible outcomes of our work include more than 15 presentations to Local Drought Impact Groups, 3 stakeholder capacity building workshops, 8 presentations at state or national meetings, two years of uninterrupted monthly drought newsletters to citizens in Arizona and New Mexico, contributions to reports to Governor Napolitano, and a white paper on LDIG implementation. We have forged alliances with SAHRA, AWI, UA Office of Arid Lands Studies and others to develop and implement citizens' drought monitoring tools. We have garnered leveraged funding for implementation of citizens' precipitation monitoring and the development and implementation of an online recording and reporting system for drought impacts monitoring. We have written several conference abstracts, and a conference proceedings paper.
Plans for the upcoming year:
As the project winds down, we plan to write peer-reviewed and trade journal papers summarizing the project findings, including citizens' drought monitoring design, lessons on implementation of local drought planning and monitoring, and an assessment of Arizona drought plan implementation. We will conduct an online survey on stakeholder needs for value-added information in the Southwest Climate Outlook, in the context of drought decision support in Arizona. We will also complete a drought product fact sheets associated with Arizona drought monitoring tools.
Organization Involvement:
Co-development of Local Drought Impact Group protocols and processes. Co-development of funding proposals for operational tools related to this project.
