Dr. Mannava V. K. Sivakumar, director of the Climate Prediction and Adaptation Branch of the World Meteorological Organization, planned to take the recommendations from the Inter-Regional Workshop on Indices and Early Warning Systems for Drought to a press conference on drought monitoring and food security at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. |
Participants listened to comments from Adrian Trotman, representing the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology in Barbados. |
Lincoln, Neb. – Drought scientists from all over the world met this week in Lincoln and reviewed many ways of measuring drought before agreeing that the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) should become the global standard.
The Lincoln Declaration on Drought Indices, issued Dec. 11 at the conclusion of the workshop, also said that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) will produce a comprehensive manual on the SPI to help countries around the world implement it for meteorological drought. Participants also recommended further study to identify best ways to measure hydrological and agricultural drought.
The workshop brought together 54 participants from 22 countries around the world. The workshop was organized jointly by the WMO and by the School of Natural Resources and the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska. The workshop was co-sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Participants broke into small groups to identify and evaluate drought indices for meteorological, agricultural and hydrological drought. |
Dr. Mannava V. K. Sivakumar, director of the Climate Prediction and Adaptation Branch of the WMO, will share the recommendations of the Inter-Regional Workshop on Indices and Early Warning Systems for Drought at a press conference on drought monitoring and food security during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Sivakumar assured participants that countries should continue to monitor drought according to their local needs, and that additionally monitoring drought according to an international standard would help establish a common frame of reference for global communication and decision-making.
Along with the push towards a global standard, Sivakumar observed that increasing access to information has made it possible for individuals to assume more decision-making responsibility. In turn, this places an obligation on scientists to produce information that people can understand and use.
"In the past, you did not have information at your fingertips in time to use it," he said. "Today, especially in a democratic society, there is a lot of information dissemination and action at the individual level. It's an indication of the progress we're making with time. If there's drought, governments can recommend that farmers reduce plant populations. But who does it? The farmer himself has to do it. At the end of the day, even if policy is prescriptive, actions are local. A forecast has value only when individuals act on it."
