Drought Impacts: Vulnerability thresholds in monitoring and Early-warning Research

Drought events pose a threat to water security in virtually every climate zone and to every water use sector. Although little can be done in the short term to prevent a drought, actions can be taken to reduce the vulnerability of society to the event, including the development of drought monitoring and early warning (M&EW) systems. There have been few attempts to assess how relevant widely-used physical indicators are for capturing drought severity in a way that reflects the complexity of inter-related human and environmental causes, effects and impacts, and such impacts have not been adequately incorporated into existing drought M&EW systems. This project seeks to fill this gap by improving the conceptual and methodological link between natural (hydrometeorological) drought characterisation and environmental and socio-economic impacts, in order to inform the development of enhanced drought M&EW systems and other risk management strategies. An innovative methodological approach will combine the use of hydro-meteorological and socio-economic data, including impact reports, alongside social learning approaches designed to incorporate stakeholders' views and experiences of drought. The team will use existing datasets of drought indices typically incorporated in monitoring systems, but also extensive, yet under-utilized, databases on drought impacts (US Drought Reporter, EU project DROUGHT R&SPI database). In a series of workshops with water suppliers and other stakeholders, the applicability of M&EW systems will be explored in strategy games and the results will feed back into analysis and design. This approach will support the iterative development of novel approaches for targeted M&EW for the case study sector of public water supply. The direct involvement of some partners in operational drought monitoring and robust assessment of the potentials and opportunities under different prerequisites will guarantee the project's impact and thus help move towards the goal of developing new practices enabling communities to build capacity for resilience to drought.

The DrIVER research will generate a number of different outcomes which will benefit a range of users, some of whom will be engaged directly and benefit directly, and others who will benefit indirectly. Overall, DrIVER has the potential to impact the way we think about and 'do' water science, water management, education and learning strategies, policy development and most importantly transform aspects of drought resilience among communities.

In terms of organizations involved in monitoring, CEH currently hosts the UK National Hydrological Monitoring Programme, a UK-wide focus for drought (and water resources) and also has strong links with the Environment Agency, who conduct appraisals of the water situation in England and Wales and whose responsibility it is to actively manage droughts in those countries. The engagement of CEH in DriVER would thus ensure that future developments in UK drought and water resources monitoring could benefit directly from the findings of DriVER as they develop, and would also ensure that the benefits could reach the other organizations involved in drought management and M&EW in the UK and internationally via these partnerships.

Indirect impacts are expected for M&EW services elsewhere in Europe. The pan-European Drought Observatory by JRC aimed at developing M&EW will also benefit strongly from the synthesis of existing M&EW systems. The cross-country collaboration in DrIVER will ensure that UK and European research and practice benefits from the learning experiences of M&EW in the US and Australia, which already have large-scale M&EW systems. Both these outcomes will be of high utility for further development of more cohesive strategies for M&EW on a large-scale in Europe.

DriVER also has major policy impact potential. DriVER comes at an important time in the UK when the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs is reviewing its abstraction licencing policy and designing its future research plans in environmental flows (work being led by CEH). Likewise CEH played a lead role in the freshwater component of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment, which highlighted the importance of ecosystem processes, functions and services to economic, social and environmental security, and has underpinned UK government environmental policy. DriVER will also enable this work to be extended to cover environmental risk and management during droughts that can be integrated with the development of M&EW systems.

A range of national and local level stakeholders and regulators will also be involved in the social learning events (workshops) and processes associated with Task 3 in particular. The various stakeholders involved directly in the DrIVER research will benefit from their involvement in the workshops and associated activities specified. The workshop design is intentionally not 'extractive' in the more usual sense of researchers extracting information from stakeholders. Instead, we see stakeholders as being part of the learning process (rather than just information store). This will give stakeholders a more positive and proactive role and can contribute, as part of a wider collaborative learning community, to improved policy and practice. We expect each workshop will consist of the following stakeholders: central government (Defra), the water supply companies, regulators (Environment Agency), Natural England, National Farmers Union, River Community Groups and River Trusts, Canal and Rivers Trust, local NGOs. Where possible, we will also invite individual stakeholders who have a clear interest or contribution to understanding drought in the local context. A better-informed public should also lead to a better-informed decision/policy maker.

The fact that our data and value-added information will be made available freely through our web portal, and those of our partners, should allow for transparency that fosters and empowers our constituents.