Natural Resources and Conservation Commons^™

Polycentric Governance In Nebraska, U.S., For Ground And Surface Water, Theresa Jedd, Anthony B. Schutz, Mark Burbach

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

This chapter describes the locally driven, but centrally coordinated, water governance model in Nebraska, U.S. It offers a snapshot of water resources and the importance of agriculture, then moves to the relevant political institutions in the state, and federal controls related to water quantity. The focus of the chapter is on the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources’ (NeDNR) and Natural Resources Districts’ (NRDs) management of surface and groundwater, which has some distinct and some overlapping authority. The main area of overlap is in addressing the connection between ground and surface water, particularly in situations when either or both are over …

Droughtscape, Winter 2022, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Winter 2022

Evidence For Irruptive Fluctuation In Axis Deer Of Hawai‘I, Steven C. Hess, Jonathan Sprague, Jacob Muise

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Axis deer on the Hawaiian Islands of Maui, Lāna‘i, and Moloka‘i simultaneously experienced one of the most dramatic population crashes on record in 2020-2021, which coincided with extended drought conditions and prompted an emergency declaration for these islands. This phenomenon has been anecdotally documented during previous drought events in 2011-2012, but never formally studied. Newspaper articles document abundant deer becoming a nuisance to agriculture and natural resources, and then experiencing high mortality during droughts. This phenomenon fits Caughley’s (1970) operational definition of eruptive (sic) fluctuation “…as an increase in numbers over at least two generations, followed by a marked decline.” …

Poor Acclimation To Experimental Field Drought In Subalpine Forest Tree Seedlings, Alex Goke, Patrick H. Martin

Biological Sciences: Faculty Scholarship

The ability of tree species to acclimate and tolerate projected increases in drought frequency and intensity has fundamental implications for future forest dynamics with climate change. Inquiries to date on the drought tolerance capacities of tree species, however, have focused almost exclusively on mature trees with scant in situ work on seedlings, despite the central role that regeneration dynamics play in forest responses to changing conditions. We subjected naturally established seedlings of co-dominant subalpine conifer species (Abies lasiocarpa and Picea engelmannii) in the southern Rocky Mountains to 2 years of in situ summer precipitation exclusion, simulating summer drought …

Data Analytics For Sustainable Food And Agriculture Systems, Megan Lord Reavis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasing concentration of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is altering the climate, posing a serious threat to global agriculture and food security. Agriculture and food production contribute a quarter of all GHG emissions produced, so there is a critical need to limit emissions in this area while increasing food production to feed the anticipated 10 billion people by 2050. To address the needs of the future, data-driven solutions are needed to guide decision-making and provide support for actionable climate mitigation and survival strategies. Research efforts must be focused on analyzing problems on multiple scales, identifying new ways to …

Floodplain Forests Vegetation Dynamics Driven By Water Deficits Across Scales, Nga Thanh Nguyen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Restoration of floodplain ecosystems relies on identifying the most crucial hydrologic process which has been altered by human and climate. Flooding is a well-known dominant hydrologic process for floodplain ecosystems, but surprisingly little is known about drought's role in structuring ecosystems. In addition, several issues remained uncertain, such as the nature of drought within floodplains and the sensitivity of floodplain species-specific growth to climate. These gaps of understanding have in common in missing observations of mechanistic pathways of vegetation response to water deficits at multiple scales in time and space.Generally, this research contributed to floodplain management by expanding our understanding …

Droughtscape, Fall 2021, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Fall 2021

Droughtscape, Summer 2021, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Summer 2021

An Integrated Food, Energy, And Water Nexus, Human Well-Being, And Resilience (Few-Wise) Framework: New Mexico, Kamini Yadav, Hatim M. Geli, Andres F. Cibils, Michael Hayes, Alexander Fernald, James Peach, Mohammed N. Sawalhah, Vincent C. Tidwell, Lindsay E. Johnson, Ashraf J. Zaied, Melakeneh G. Gedefaw

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Interconnected food, energy, and water (FEW) nexus systems face many challenges to support human well-being (HWB) and maintain resilience, especially in arid and semiarid regions like New Mexico (NM), United States (US). Insufficient FEW resources, unstable economic growth due to fluctuations in prices of crude oil and natural gas, inequitable education and employment, and climate change are some of these challenges. Enhancing the resilience of such coupled socio-environmental systems depends on the efficient use of resources, improved understanding of the interlinkages across FEW system components, and adopting adaptable alternative management strategies. The goal of this study was to develop a …

Informing Drought Mitigation Policy By Estimating The Value Of Water For Crop Production, Renata Rimsaite, Justin Gibson, Nicholas Brozovic

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Farmers use irrigation to mitigate drought risk and reduce yield uncertainty. A clear understanding of the monetary value of irrigation water and how it varies across time and space can help to inform farmers and policymakers about the potential impacts of water shortages and reduce uncertainty in decision making. Here, we introduce a framework for understanding the economic value of water used to produce corn in the central High Plains region during the period 2010–2017. Our analysis uses publicly available data for corn price and for irrigated and non-irrigated yields and incorporates irrigation requirement adjustments to account for the hydrologic …

Droughtscape, Spring 2021, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Spring 2021

Effects Of Drought On Groundwater-Fed Lake Areas In The Nebraska Sand Hills, N. Shrestha, A. R. Mittelstet, T. E. Gilmore, V. Zlotnik, C. Neale

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Droughtscape, Winter 2021, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Winter 2021

Droughtscape, Fall 2020, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Fall 2020

Connections Between The Hydrological Cycle And Crop Yield In The Rainfed U.S. Corn Belt, Wang Zhou, Kaiyu Guan, Bin Peng, Jiancheng Shi, Chongya Jiang, Brian Wardlow, Ming Pan, John S. Kimball, Trenton Franz, Pierre Gentine, Mingzhu He, Jingwen Zhang

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Shallow Subsurface Hydrology In Large Fine-Grained Floodplains, Mary Grace Lemon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Floodplains are hydrologically dynamic, receiving water from overbank events, hyporheic flows, local precipitation, and regional groundwater sources. These sources are variously important contributors to the heterogeneous floodplain water pool that includes matrix water in soil micropores, mobile water in soil macropores, groundwater below the rooting zone, ephemeral to seasonal surface storage, and permanent surface water features such as oxbow lakes, sloughs, and other secondary channels. All sources may be ecologically relevant for floodplain vegetation, but the exact roles of each source in both controlling soil water and shallow groundwater recharge and in controlling floodplain water drainage are not well understood, …

Droughtscape, Summer 2020, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Summer 2020

Droughtscape, Spring 2020, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Spring 2020

Habitat Patchiness, Ecological Connectivity And The Uneven Recovery Of Boreal Stream Ecosystems From An Experimental Drought, Amelie Truchy, Romain Sarremejane, Timo Muotka, Heikki Mykra, David G. Angeler, Kaisa Lehosmaa, Ari Huusko, Richard K. Johnson, Ryan A. Sponseller, Brendan G. Mckie

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Ongoing climate change is increasing the occurrence and intensity of drought episodes worldwide, including in boreal regions not previously regarded as drought prone, and where the impacts of drought remain poorly understood. Ecological connectivity is one factor that might influence community structure and ecosystem functioning post-drought, by facilitating the recovery of sensitive species via dispersal at both local (e.g. a nearby habitat patch) and regional (from other systems within the same region) scales. In an outdoor mesocosm experiment, we investigated how impacts of drought on boreal stream ecosystems are altered by the spatial arrangement of local habitat patches within stream …

Whose Ground Truth Is It? Harvesting Lessons From Missouri’S 2018 Bumper Crop Of Drought Observations, Kelly Helm Smith, Mark E. Burbach, Michael J. Hayes, A. Tyre, Patrick E. Guinan, Brian Fuchs, Tonya Haigh, Mark D. Svoboda

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Czech Drought Monitor System For Monitoring And Forecasting Of Agricultural Drought And Drought Impacts, Miroslav Trnka, Petr Hlavinka, Martin Možný, Daniela Semerádová, Petr Štěpánek, Jan Balek, Lenka Bartošová, Pavel Zahradníček, Monika Bláhová, Petr Skalák, Aleš Farda, Michael Hayes, Mark D. Svoboda, Wolfgang Wagner, Josef Eitzinger, Milan Fischer, Zdeněk Zalud

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The awareness of drought and its impacts on Central Europe increased after the significant drought episodes in 2000, 2003, 2012 and 2015, which were all estimated to have caused over 500 million Euro in damage in the Czech Republic alone. These events indicated the need for timely and highresolution monitoring tools that would enable analysing, monitoring and forecasting of drought events. Monitoring soil water availability in near real time and at high-resolution (up to 0.5 × 0.5 km for some products) helps farmers and water managers to mitigate impacts of these extreme events. The Czech Drought Monitor was developed between …

Multi-Dimensional Nature Of Drought In Abbay/Upper Blue Nile Basin And The Importance Of Regional Coordination Efforts For Mitigation, Y.A. Bayissa, S. Moges, A.M. Malesse, T. Tadesse, A.Z. Abiy

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Droughtscape, Winter 2019, Cory Matteson

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

From the Director

4th quarter climate summary

2019 year in review summary

4th quarter drought impact summary

2019 drought impact summary

New form helps ‘see more’ drought

Landscape photographers invited to submit photos

Helping Central and South America planning

Database includes more drought planning

Rangeland Management During Drought: Assessing Social–Ecological And Cognitive Indicators Of Ranchers’ Adaptive Capacity, Tonya Haigh

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Rangeland managers face challenges to adapt to climate extremes, and research is needed on how to support their adaptive capacity for managing climate risk. This study evaluates adaptive capacity using an integrated vulnerability and resilience conceptual model and three cognitive behavioral models. Overarching research questions focus on the relationship between protective action and impacts and the best predictors of taking action in response to drought. Three studies address these questions, using quantitative data collected from two post-drought surveys of rangeland-based livestock managers in the Northern Great Plains of the U.S. The studies find evidence of the roles of social-ecological sources …

Drought Impacts Assessment In Brazil: A Remote Sensing Approach, Denis Mariano

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Climate extremes are becoming more frequent in Brazil; studies project an increase in drought occurrences in many regions of the country. In the south, drought events lead to crop yield losses affecting the value chain and, therefore, the local economy. In the northeast, extended periods of drought lead to potential land degradation, affecting the livelihood and hindering local development. In the southern Amazon, an area that experienced intense land use change (LUC) in the last, the impacts are even more complex, ranging from crop yield loss and forest resilience loss, affecting ecosystem health and putting a threat on the native …

Droughtscape, Fall 2019, Cory Matteson

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

From the Director

Quarterly drought summary

Quarterly drought impacts

Ranchers delayed response to drought

Drought Monitor celebrates 20 years

Drought Monitor state impact tables

Directorcontributesto U.N.droughtproject

Updated Drought Risk Atlas

New fact sheet lists recovery resources

Droughtscape, Summer 2019, Cory Matteson

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

From the Director

Quarterly drought summary

Quarterly drought impacts

NDMC welcomes African visitors

Ready for Drought game debuts

U.S. Virgin Islands added to USDM

Australian programmer visits NDMC

Upcoming events

Partnerships with NDMC extended

Comparisons Of Drought Institutions Between The U.S. And Korea, Sungbyung Chae

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Drought occurs in basically dry area around the area of less precipitation but it affects all around the world that can occur anywhere there is a deficit of rainfall from expected levels. This happened by the extreme climate event over land lower precipitation over a period of months to years. This could affect agricultural systems around the world, within food, ecologically atmosphere condition and also the habitation food security. From the developing in the modern technology, since the environment of nature is the basic element of living creature, human would be facing the challenging of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food …

Droughtscape, Spring 2019, Cory Matteson

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

From the Director

Wet and cool conditions bring drought relief to the West

Notable numbers from Q1

Drought impact summary, 1st quarter 2019

New research examines drought effects on state recreation areas

At Ethiopian space science workshop, NDMC climatologist sees promise in preparing for drought

U.S.- affiliated Pacific Islands now part of U.S. Drought Monitor

Water conservation tips for drought, flood and other disasters

Upcoming events

The Evolution, Propagation, And Spread Of Flash Drought In The Central United States During 2012, Jeffrey B. Basara, Jordan I. Christian, Ryann A. Wakefield, Jason A. Otkin, Eric H. Hunt, David P. Brown

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

During 2012, flash drought developed and subsequently expanded across large areas of the Central United States (US) with severe impacts to overall water resources and warm-season agricultural production. Recent efforts have yielded a methodology to detect and quantify flash drought occurrence and rate of intensification from climatological datasets via the standardized evaporative stress ratio (SESR). This study utilizes the North American Regional Reanalysis and applied the SESR methodology to quantify the spatial and temporal development and expansion of flash drought conditions during 2012. Critical results include the identification of the flash drought epicenter and subsequent spread of flash drought conditions …