Observing and Monitoring Drought
Abstract

Abstract Author: Richard Lawford, Ronald Stewart

Abstract Title: The Drought Research Initiative: An interdisciplinary study of a multi-year drought on the Canadian prairies.

Abstract: The Drought Research Initiative is a five-year research project funded by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences that studies the 1999 to 2005 drought over the Canadian prairies. The project involves investigators from six Canadian universities as well as collaborators in a number of federal and provincial government departments. DRI’s primary research focus is: i) characterizing the drought, ii) understanding the processes that initiated, maintained and terminated the drought, and iii) contributing to better drought prediction. In addition, DRI has undertaken some studies to assess how this multi-year drought relates to earlier droughts on the Canadian prairies and explores how the information from this research could be used to improve society’s capability to adapt to future droughts.

After giving an overview of DRI, this presentation will focus on the characteristics of the 1999 to 2005 drought, the large scale and smaller scale processes that initiated and maintained the drought, and the information requirements of users developing plans for more adaptive responses to future droughts.