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This page last updated 28 October 2003

Workshop Agenda:

This agenda was followed at the workshop.

Wednesday, October 1 - Monitoring Drought in an Arid-Semiarid Environment

Goals for Today's Session: Based on the speaker presentations and general discussions, by the end of the day we want to determine:

1. what specific issues need to be addressed when monitoring drought in an arid-semiarid environment
2. other data we need to get a better national operational handle on (reservoir observations, groundwater/well data, etc.)
3. what West-specific indices and products are needed: progress reports on SWSI, Basin Water Index, etc.

Thursday, October 2 - U.S. Drought Monitor User Feedback & Technical Issues

Goals for This Morning's Session: Based on the speaker presentations and general discussions, by the end of the morning we want to determine:

1. how is the USDM meeting user needs or not meeting user needs ... (users include state & city planners, water managers, senator/congressman offices, state drought coordinators, hydrologists, commercial organizations, media, etc. from across the country and from other countries)
2. how should the USDM be used (political issues/considerations, disaster declarations down to the county level, general vs local conditions, etc.)
3. how does the USDM fit in with other drought monitoring activities (e.g., NOAA/WGA partnership, NDPC, NADM, others)

Goals for This Afternoon's Session: Based on the speaker presentations and general discussions, by the end of the day we want to address and begin to resolve the following issues (and other issues raised at the meeting):

1. transitioning to ArcGIS (making the USDM map, overlaying input indicator products, other output products, serving as input to the NADM ArcGIS process, etc.)
2. the issue of 2 (or more) maps vs 1 map for USDM
   • monthly hydrological assessment product, potential companion product of the USDM, under development
   • depicting multiple scales/impacts of drought --- is the Dx level depicted the average of the short and long term Dx levels, or the worst of these two Dx levels?
3. address action items from last year's workshop
   • weekly vs monthly Palmer (NCDC computing monthly Palmer on weekly basis using CPC data)
   • SPI issues -- which statistical distribution to use
   • the fuzziness of the Dx class boundaries
4. RCC products (MRCC & HPRC percent of normal maps, MRCC soil moisture, etc.)
5. terminology of Dx categories
6. adding text explaining the strengths/weaknesses of USDM and how to use the product
7. consistency of labeling the A, H, AH impact areas

Friday, October 3 - U.S. Drought Monitor Administrative and Technical Issues

Goals for Today's Session: By the end of the morning we want to finish discussing the technical issues from yesterday and address and resolve the following administrative issues (and other issues raised at the meeting):

1. the need for additional USDM authors
2. written guidelines (regarding who can be authors, what products those authors can or should consider, what they should not look at, etc.) and external advisory board
3. unauthorized "release" of draft USDM
4. the full picture --- integrated national-regional-state-local product suite --- NCDC, CPC, JAWF, RFCs, NRCS, NDMC, RCCs, SCs --- integrate data, map, product, web page layers