Faculty Fellow Mark Svoboda Talks About New Technologies Helping Drought Research

Faculty fellow Mark Svoboda was recently featured in the national news speaking about "The Drought Mecca," the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's National Drought Mitigation Center. A new interactive interface and export tool helps users customize U.S. Drought Monitor maps to visualize the extent and severity of drought across the country, or for specific regions or states.

According to the National Drought Mitigation Center, "The new interactive interface includes both current and past USDM maps so users can view weekly drought conditions across the U.S. and its territories all the way back to 2000 when the Drought Monitor began. They can then overlay those maps with a suite of jurisdictional reference layers—including tribal lands, federal lands, crop reporting districts and political boundaries—and other sources of environmental data." 

With these new interactive satellite-based tools and technology, the USDM aims to deliver information about drought conditions and impacts in a timely way, so it can better inform policy decisions and help identify drought risks.

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