Managing Drought Risk on the Ranch
This website offers a downloadable 39-page guide in PDF format, with step-by-step instructions and worksheets for managing drought on the ranch.
It also provides:
Northern Great Plains
Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI)
VegDRI maps are produced weekly and provide regional to sub-county scale information about drought's effects on vegetation.
In 2006, VegDRI covered seven states in the Northern Great Plains (CO, KS, MT, NE, ND, SD, and WY). It has undergone multiple expansions:
U.S. Agricultural Commodities in Drought
All drought information is derived from the U.S. Drought Monitor. The percentage of commodities affected by drought is presented in a number of formats, including data tables, data graphs, maps, and animations.
The U.S. Agriculture in Drought file is updated each Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Chief Economist, based on that morning’s U.S. Drought Monitor map. An archive of the weekly reports is available on the website.
Quick Drought Response Index (QuickDRI)
This index is a shorter-term indicator of dryness, calculated through the analysis of satellite- and model-based observations of conditions that influence drought. It was designed to provide a snapshot of anomalously dry or wet conditions over the past four weeks, and serves as an indicator of emerging or rapidly changing drought conditions. The maps are updated weekly over the continental United States and have a 1-kilometer spatial resolution.
Drought Impacts Toolkit
This toolkit from the National Drought Mitigation Center provides:
Drought Risk Atlas
Each station, displayed in a map viewer, provides a long, continuous record of weather data. Indices include pre-generated heat maps, time series, tabular analyses, and more for the Standardized Precipitation Index, the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index, the Palmer Drought Severity Index, the self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index, the Standardized Streamflow Index, and more.
Grassland Productivity Forecast (Grass-Cast)
Every spring, ranchers face the same difficult challenge—trying to guess how much grass will be available for livestock to graze during the upcoming summer. This innovative forecast tool can help producers in the Great Plains reduce this economically important source of uncertainty.
Preparing for the Regional Health Impacts of Climate Change in the United States
Each region of the United States experiences climate change and its impacts on health differently, due to the regions’ location-specific climate exposures and unique societal and demographic characteristics. This document describes the various health impacts climate change will have on different regions of the United States as outlined in the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), actions taken by the CDC Climate and Health Program’s health department partners to prepare for and respond to climate change in their communities, and relevant tools and resources.
LASSO—Locating and Selecting Scenarios Online
The LASSO tool guides you step-by-step through the process of identifying and downloading climate change scenarios—or projections—that are relevant to your interest or research question. At each step you will define criteria that will subset climate change information from a much larger archive, with LASSO providing helpful information and suggestions along the way. At the end of the process you will have the option to download maps, figures, and GIS-ready spatial data or use an interactive scatterplot widget to customize or change your choices.
Neighborhoods at Risk
Convenient, free access to socioeconomic and climate data can help communities visualize potential problems and make informed decisions to adapt to long-term climate change.