National Drought Resilience Partnership Report

ASDWA participated in a White House Drought Council Roundtable held on September 21st.  The focus for the discussion was the August 2016 National Drought Resilience Partnership (NDRP) Report to the Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience.  The Report was prepared to answer some of the charges issued in President Obama’s March 2013 Presidential Memorandum on long term drought resilience.  The Report provides an overview of some of the Administration’s drought response work to date and is the first of what is expected to be regular updates from the NDRP.
The Partnership identified six goals to enhance drought resiliency.  Each goal identifies a Federal Agency lead for the effort and also includes accomplished and proposed actions and examples of efforts to date:

• Goal 1: Data Collection and Integration – to share date on drought, water use, and water availability including snowpack, groundwater, stream flow, and soil moisture.
• Goal 2: Communicating Drought Risk to Critical Infrastructure – to enhance communications with state, regional, tribal, local, and critical infrastructure officials on drought risks.
• Goal 3: Drought Planning and Capacity Building – to assist state, regional, tribal, and local officials in building local planning capacity for drought preparedness and resilience.
• Goal 4: Coordination of Federal Drought Activity – to improve coordination and integration of drought-related activities to enhance the collective benefits of Federal programs and investments.
• Goal 5: Market-Based Approaches for Infrastructure and Efficiency – to support the advancement of innovative investment models and market-based approaches to increase resiliency, flexibility, and efficiency of water use and water supply systems.
• Goal 6: Innovative Water Use, Efficiency and Technology – to support the advancement of innovative investment models and market-based approaches to increase resiliency, flexibility, and efficiency of water use and water supply systems.

Several Federal Agencies form the membership in the National Drought Resilience Partnership:  EPA Office of Water, USDA Rural Development, Department of Commerce NOAA, Department of Interior Bureau of Reclamation, US Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Health & Human Services CDC, and Department of Homeland Security National Protection and Programs Directorate.
If you’d like to know more about this initiative, click the following line for a copy of the Report https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/ndrp_august_report_final_83016.pdf .