THE DROUGHT IMPACT REPORTER: A WEB-BASED NATIONAL DROUGHT IMPACTS REPORTING TOOL

Although drought is a major natural hazard worldwide, very few quantitative assessments and economic estimates of drought impacts have been done. The National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) receives numerous requests each year for information on the magnitude of drought impacts for current or historical events. Until recently, no systematic, standardized data collection effort existed in the United States. As a result, the estimates of the quantitative losses associated with drought are extremely incomplete at local, regional, and national scales and also by sector. In addition, many of the impacts associated with drought are social and environmental, and these types of impacts are even more difficult to quantify. In July 2005, the NDMC launched a new drought impact archive and visualization tool. This tool, the Drought Impact Reporter [http://droughtreporter.unl.edu], consists of a web-based package of products and interactive features that is also designed to assimilate user-supplied information, giving decision makers at all levels the ability to report or assess the impacts due to drought in near real-time down to the county level. An archival database is also being built and maintained, allowing for queries based on location, time, and impact category. The ultimate goal of this effort is to develop methodologies that are comprehensive and consistent in quantifying the economic, social, and environmental losses associated with drought at all levels.