New Tools for Assessing Drought Conditions for Rangeland Management

Abstract

• Historical drought assessment and ongoingmonitoring is essential for understanding past drought occurrence, the relationships between past drought and its impacts, and for triggering action during current drought events.
• A variety of new products have recently been developed to better monitor drought conditions and assess past occurrences at the local scale.
• A growing number of resources are available to assist rangeland managers to develop a monitoring system and incorporate it into a drought management plan.

Keywords: drought, monitoring, risk atlas, VegDRI, risk assessment, planning.