Defending Against Drought

Prepare Your Farm or Ranch Before Drought Strikes — ideas on water, land, and crop management for you to consider while creating your drought plan

With good planning, good management, and good information, farms and ranches can reduce the impacts of drought. The Department of Agriculture's Joint Agricultural Weather Facility and the Natural Resources Conservation Service's (NRCS), National Water and Climate Center, along with the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Interior, and the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, helps people prepare for and deal with drought.

These partnerships make a variety of drought information available on the Internet. The U.S. Drought Monitor is updated every Thursday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time and offers brief overviews of drought conditions across the Nation, as well as animated maps, compiled by government and university scientists.

For more detail on drought, the Current Conditions section offers links to a variety of leading drought indexes; including rainfall, streamflow, and snowpack reports; soil moisture, climate, and precipitation data; plus the Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin published each Tuesday by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Commerce.

Additional Information

• National Water and Climate Center

• National Drought Mitigation Center

• Drought Planners Directory Directory of Drought Contacts by State

• National Drought Policy Commission Reports

• U.S. Drought Monitor

• NRCS Connects Farmers and Ranchers to Online Drought, Crop, and Plant Data (6/25/01)