Midwest Drought Early Warning System Kickoff Meeting 1

MIDWEST DROUGHT EARLY WARNING SYSTEM KICKOFF MEETING 1 Include logos of all partners that contributed to meeting on bottom here? MIDWEST DROUGHT EARLY WARNING SYSTEM KICKOFF MEETING 1 Table of Contents Introduction to the Midwest DEWS ......................................................................................... 2 Background..........................................................................................................................................................................2 Midwest DEWS Kick-off Meeting and Planning Process ..................................................................................4 Keynote Speaker Highlights...................................................................................................... 6 Mayor Francis G. Slay, Mayor of the City of St. Louis.........................................................................................6 Colleen Callahan, USDA Rural Development Illinois Director .......................................................................6 Todd Sampsell, Deputy Director of the Missouri DNR......................................................................................7 Highlights of the Presentations and Panel Discussions ...................................................... 7 Day 1 Theme: Laying the Foundation for a Midwest DEWS ..........................................................................7 Day 2 Theme: Current Climate Outlook and Forecasting, Drought Impacts & Vulnerabilities, and Drought Preparedness Resource Needs ........................................................................................................8 Day 3 Theme: Drought Early Warning and Preparedness Priorities and Actions............................. 10 Priority Needs and Proposed Actions ................................................................................... 10 Integration of Networks to Foster Collaboration and Information Sharing ........................................ 10 Integration of Data for Drought Planning and Vulnerability Assessments .......................................... 11 Hydrologic and Climatic Processes ........................................................................................................................ 12 Drought Education and Public Outreach ............................................................................................................. 12 Next Steps – Midwest DEWS Strategic Plan .......................................................................... 12 Appendix A – Summary of Prioritized Needs and Proposed Actions.............................. 13 Table A-1 Prioritized Needs of the Midwest DEWS ........................................................................................ 13 Table A-2 Proposed Actions for the Midwest DEWS ...................................................................................... 16 Appendix B – Available Information and Activities and Future Needs .......................... 19 Table B-1 Data, Information and Resources Needs to Inform Discussion on Priority Needs and Midwest DEWS Actions ............................................................................................................................................... 19 Appendix C– Midwest DEWS Kickoff Meeting Agenda ....................................................... 28 Appendix D– Midwest DEWS Kickoff Meeting Attendees.................................................. 32 Appendix E– Midwest DEWS Survey Assessment ............................................................... 34 Climate Impacts .............................................................................................................................................................. 35 Preparing for Drought and Decision Making ..................................................................................................... 36 Drought/Climate Information Use, Usability, Needs, Gaps ......................................................................... 37 Surveyed Priorities........................................................................................................................................................ 39 Next Steps/Suggestions for the Midwest Strategic Plan............................................................................... 40 MIDWEST DROUGHT EARLY WARNING SYSTEM KICKOFF MEETING 2 Introduction to the Midwest DEWS NOAA’s National Integrated Drought WHAT IS NIDIS? Information System (NIDIS) is initiating the development and implementation of a Drought The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Early Warning System (DEWS) in the Midwest. Administration‘s (NOAA) National NIDIS is comprised of a network of regional Integrated Drought Information System drought early warning systems throughout the (NIDIS) program was authorized by United States, where, in accordance with Congress in 2006 (Public Law 109- 430) Congressionally authorized Public Laws (P.L. with an interagency mandate to coordinate 109-430 and P.L. 113-86), NIDIS is working and integrate drought research, building closely with federal, state and local interagency upon existing federal, tribal, state, and local and intergovernmental partners to improve partnerships in support of creating a drought early warning capacity and resilience. national drought early warning information The Midwest DEWS also addresses the system. relationship between high precipitation events and drought, where high precipitation events can significantly affect the duration, severity and impacts associated with drought. Background Precipitation extremes in the Midwest (whether it is too wet or dry) have a major impact on the region’s resources, economic sectors and residents. Over the last century, period of prolonged and extreme droughts have become less frequent than the Midwest region WHAT IS A DEWS? experienced in the early 20th century. However, A DEWS utilizes new and existing partner the Midwest has still felt adverse impacts during networks to optimize the expertise of a droughts of recent decades, particularly in 1988, wide range of federal, tribal, state, local and 2005, and 2012. These adverse impacts include academic partners in order to make climate limited barge transportation on major rivers and drought science readily available, (including the Mississippi River), decreased easily understandable and usable for agricultural production, challenges for municipal decision makers; and to improve the water supply, and reduced productivity for capacity of stakeholders to better monitor, hydropower. forecast, plan for and cope with the impacts of drought. An added challenge in recent years has been the tendency to transition from drought to flood and back to drought within short time spans, sometimes within a matter of months. The 2012 drought occurred just a year later after epic flooding throughout the Midwest and Great Plains In addition, wet April-June periods have been more common over the last 10 years, which also affects important Midwest sectors. MIDWEST DROUGHT EARLY WARNING SYSTEM KICKOFF MEETING 3 For agriculture, wet springs reduce the number of workable field days, delay planting, and increase nitrogen loss, which further can degrade water quality. The wet springs of 2011 and 2013 were followed by dry summers, which exacerbated the challenges faced by farmers. The frequency of extreme precipitation events and amount of precipitation in the Midwest is expected to continue to increase in the future. However, recent Midwest DEWS Region decades have demonstrated that droughts can and will Note: While the brown shading denotes the still occur in a wetter climate. They have also DEWS Midwest region, where the majority of demonstrated the challenges associated with a rapid DEWs actions focus, activities may extend change between the climatic extremes. Properly beyond the shaded area when needed. The planning and preparing for both drought and high “fuzzy” edges reflect the permeability of the DEWS boundary. precipitation and understanding the relationship between the two events is important for developing climate resilience in the Midwest. To address these challenges, NIDIS and its partners launched the Midwest DEWS in February 2016. The Midwest DEWS is a collaborative federal, state, and local interagency effort to improve early warning capacity and resilience to both drought and high precipitation events throughout the region. This is accomplished through local stakeholder-driven activities encompassing data collection and monitoring; research; planning for climate extremes; and communication, education, and outreach. Activities will focus on areas throughout the Upper Mississippi River and Ohio River basins in Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. Specific objectives of the Midwest DEWS are to: Mission of the Midwest DEWS ▪ Provide a forum for a diverse group of federal, Enhance drought resilience in the tribal, state, and local stakeholders that represent all Midwest region by improving the economic sectors, including water and land resource ability for communities to management, to strategize and develop appropriate, collaborate, plan and be prepared relevant, useful and readily available drought, climate, for drought, understand the weather and water-related information. relationship between drought and ▪ Develop an understanding of the existing high precipitation events, better observation and monitoring networks, data, tools, utilize available tools and climate research

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