The plan outlines priority tasks and activities to build drought early warning capacity and resilience in the Southern Plains.

 Soil moisture measurements are critical for applications ranging from agricultural monitoring and weather prediction, to drought and flood forecasting. Until now, there has been no coordinated national strategy for deploying and maintaining soil moisture networks, or for developing nationally-integrated soil moisture data products.

As drought in the Northern Plains continues to worsen, this webinar series will provide Tribal Nations up-to-date information on drought and its impacts, as well as related resources to help them prepare and respond.

The recent webinar provided stakeholders and other interested parties in the region with timely information on the current drought status and outlook, as well as the wildland fire potential outlook.

While drought is commonly defined by precipitation and runoff deficits, the study challenges this understanding by proposing a new definition: anthropogenic drought. Within human‐water systems, drought must be defined and understood as the complex and interrelated dynamics of both natural and human‐induced changes, the authors say.