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Drought is an inescapable reality in many regions, including much of the western United States. With climate change, droughts are predicted to intensify and occur more frequently, making the imperative for drought management even greater. Many diverse actors – including private landowners, business owners, scientists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and managers and policymakers within tribal, local, state, and federal government agencies – play multiple, often overlapping roles in preparing for and responding to drought. Managing water is, of course, one of the most important roles that humans play in both mitigating and responding to droughts; but, focusing only on “water managers” or “water management” fails to capture key elements related to the broader category of drought management. The respective roles played by those managing drought (as distinct from water managers), the interactions among them, and the consequences in particular contexts, are not well understood. Our team synthesized insights from 10 in-depth case studies to understand key facets of decision making about drought preparedness and response. We present a typology with four elements that collectively describe how decisions about drought preparedness and response are made (context and objective for a decision; actors responsible; choice being made or action taken; and how decisions interact with and influence other decisions). The typology provides a framework for system-level understanding of how and by whom complex decisions about drought management are made. Greater system-level understanding helps decision makers, program and research funders, and scientists to identify constraints to and opportunities for action, to learn from the past, and to integrate ecological impacts, thereby facilitating social learning among diverse participants in drought preparedness and response.

We describe a theoretically based framework (C-PMT+HAPA) for designing and evaluating collaborative processes to increase preparation for natural hazards in situations in which preparedness decisions are shared and actions must be taken jointly by more than one party. The framework combines two health behavior change theories from psychology, protection motivation theory (PMT) and the health action process approach (HAPA), with collaboration theory in natural resources management. The framework provides much needed guidance for designing the activities in which participants will collaborate and suggests theoretically supported intermediate outcomes that may indicate a successful trajectory toward the ultimate goal of increased preparation. We used this framework in a collaborative process, with participation by ranchers with grazing permits and U.S. Forest Service managers on the Tonto National Forest, to increase preparation for drought on public rangelands in the Southwestern U.S. Evaluation of intermediate outcomes indicated: (1) improved interactions and relations between parties; (2) improved ability to appraise drought risks; (3) improved understanding of the U.S. Forest Service process for approving practices that increase preparation for drought; and; (4) increased motivation to implement these practices. The strength of the intermediate outcomes suggests that the C-PMT+HAPA framework would be an effective, theoretically supported framework for designing and evaluating collaborative processes to encourage preparation for natural hazards. More generally, the framework could contribute to more transdisciplinary, system- and action-oriented research on disaster risk reduction that is coproduced with multiple stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing concern worldwide about the ineffectiveness of current drought management practices that are largely based on crisis management. These practices are reactive and, therefore, only treat the symptoms (impacts) of drought rather than the underlying causes for the vulnerabilities associated with impacts. Through the adoption of national drought policies that are focused on risk reduction and complemented by drought mitigation or preparedness plans at various levels of government, the coping capacity of nations to manage droughts can be improved. The time for adopting an approach that emphasizes drought risk reduction is now, given the spiraling impacts of droughts in an ever-increasing number of sectors and the current and projected trends for the increased frequency, severity and duration of drought events in association with a changing climate. This paper discusses the underlying concepts of drought, the principles and objectives of national drought policies and a drought planning process that has been effective in the preparation of drought mitigation plans.

Increased preparation for drought among livestock producers reliant on rain-fed forage should reduce the economic losses and environmental degradation when the eventual drought occurs. We surveyed livestock ranchers in southeastern Arizona, USA, to determine their level of increased preparation for drought following 10 very dry years, as well as their level of threat from drought, importance of coping strategies, ranching experience, herd size, and satisfaction with drought management information. We used the protection motivation theory (PMT) model to structure our analysis because it provides a cognitive process approach to understand what motivates people to increase preparation for looming problems and how the likelihood of that behavior is a function of threat and coping strategy assessments. Thirty-seven percent of ranchers reported a high increase in preparedness, and another 31 % reported some increased preparation. Increased preparation was positively associated with three coping practices: reserve pastures, rotate grazing, and drought planning. However, increased preparation was negatively associated with drought threat severity, suggesting that the more prepared ranchers have implemented coping strategies that buffer them from the looming threat of drought. We found no relationship between increased preparation and levels of ranching experience, herd size, or satisfaction with drought information. Structure and content of education and assistance programs for improving rancher preparation for drought should benefit from the PMT-based analysis because it identifies drivers leading to increased preparedness and how those drivers differ among members of the ranching community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is an abstract and complex phenomenon that can be difficult for many people to comprehend. Proactive planning to improve response during drought events is necessary but complicated because it involves stakeholders and decision-makers with competing interests. A category of games, called serious games, have proven to be helpful when learning about abstract concepts, and for improving communication and conflict resolution with respect to water-related issues. In this study, we present a new in-person role-playing game that serves as a drought educational tool in both classroom and professional settings. The message of the game emphasizes the importance of communication and cooperation between various communities and sectors that can be affected by drought. Furthermore, it also encourages discussions and collaborations between stakeholders involved in drought planning and can serve as an icebreaker activity. The game has been played in a variety of settings including university classes, university extension workshops, and drought workshops. This study describes the game itself, its development, and the results of surveys from game participants that were used to evaluate the usability of the game as an educational and icebreaker activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Droughts are risks characterized by their complexity, uncertainty, and a series of other features, which differentiate them from other natural disasters and affect the strategies designed to manage them. These characteristics highlight the close relationship between drought management and water resources management. The following hypothesis is raised in this study—unsatisfactory integration of a drought-risk and water resources management strategies, increases the vulnerability to drought. To corroborate this hypothesis, the Spanish case was analyzed, where droughts are a recurrent phenomenon, due to the Mediterranean climate. Starting from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) framework, which has been proposed to characterize vulnerability as a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, this study analyzed the vulnerability in the Spanish River Basin Districts, through—(i) the integration of the predictable effects of climate change and the increased risk of exposure in hydrologic planning; (ii) the pressure on water resources that determines the sensitivity of the systems; and (iii) the development and implementation of drought management plans as a fundamental tool, in order to adapt before these events occur. The results showed that despite important advances in the process of conceiving and managing droughts, in Spain, there are still important gaps for an adequate integration of droughts risk into the water resource strategies. Therefore, despite the improvements, drought-risk vulnerability of the systems remained high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]