This book is included in the Natural Disasters section.
Findings of the National Drought Study
1. Definition. Droughts are periods of time when natural or managed water systems do not provide
enough water to meet established human and environmental uses because of natural shortfalls in
precipitation or streamflow.
2. Drought management is a subset of water supply planning. The distinction between a “drought”
problem and a “water supply” problem is essentially defined by the nature of the best solution. Urban
areas that persistently use more than the safe yield of their water supply systems may have frequent or
even standing drought declarations that could only be eliminated through strategic water supply
measures. Those measures can be structural, such as the construction of new reservoirs, or nonstructural,
such as conservation.
3. Drought response problems are water management problems. Participants at a National
Science Foundation Drought Workshop concluded that attempts to understand and address the failings
of water management during drought would be unsuccessful unless shortcomings in the larger context
of water management are also understood and addressed. This was also one of the conclusions drawn
by the Corps of Engineers in the first year of the National Drought Study (IWR, 91-NDS-1), and the
premise upon which the DPS method was built.
The seriousness of the problem
4. Concern is widespread. Fifty percent of all water supply utilities asked their customers to reduce
consumption during the 1988 drought (Moreau, 1989). In a 1990 poll, forty-one percent of U.S.
mayors anticipated water shortages in the next several years, caused by drought, growing population,
water pollution, and leaks from distribution lines (Conserv90).
5. Water use is stable nationally. Several reports in the 1970s forecast rapid increases in American
water use, creating an impression that lingers to this day that water use is increasing. But the
National Council on Public Works Improvement reviewed several nationwide studies and concluded
that each “faced several problems in developing a comprehensive and reliable estimate” of future
water supply needs. In fact, total American water use is less now than it was in 1980, although there
is growth and more intense competition for water in some regions.
6. Several states reported that water quality suffered during drought because low flows affected their
ability to dilute effluents from wastewater treatment plants and sustain the aquatic ecosystem.
7. Drought impacts are difficult to measure. This is because:.
8. Drought impacts understate our aversion to droughts. Despite the overestimation of impacts
induced by the above factors, the level of conflict and anxiety droughts stimulate is still apt to be far
greater than the magnitude of impacts would suggest. On a national and even a state level, the
impacts to agriculture and urban areas from the California drought were relatively small, but the
drought was newsworthy for years and played a significant role in the passage of new state and new
federal laws. Observations of droughts in the 1980's suggest that turmoil will be greater when the
losses are felt more personally and when long term entitlements to water use are threatened.
Shortcomings in the way we have dealt with droughts
9. Learning from the past. Lessons learned during ongoing droughts are too rarely documented,
critically analyzed, and shared with other regions;
10. Price and efficient use. Water is almost always priced below its economic value to users or full
cost to produce. This tends to impede efficient use of water.
11. Assessing risk. Information about expected drought severity and duration is not readily available,
so risk assessments cannot be quantified as well.
12. The problems are integrated, solutions are not. Management responsibilities for problems that
are physically integrated in a river basin are fragmented by agency missions and political boundaries.
The many disciplines required to analyze drought problems and develop and institute solutions are
poorly coordinated.
13. Typical problems with traditional drought plans include (IWR, 91-NDS-1):
14. There are three time frames for response planning. Drought responses can be classified as
strategic, tactical, and emergency measures. Strategic measures are long term physical and
institutional responses such as water supply structures, water law, and plumbing codes. Tactical
measures, like water rationing, are developed in advance to respond to expected short term water
deficits. Emergency measures are implemented as an ad hoc response to conditions that are too
specific or rare to warrant the development of standing plans.
15. Technology transfer. Methods for managing water for multiple objectives have been developed
and tested over decades, but that tradition resides in the agencies that built the extensive complex of
federal dams, not in the organizations responsible for preparing tactical drought plans. This expertise
must be transferred before that institutional memory is retired.
16. Law and drought. Law sometimes drives and sometimes constrains water management during
drought. Basic appropriations doctrine discourages water conservation, because water not put to
beneficial use may be lost, but many western states have modified the basic doctrine to accommodate
conservation. In addition, sixteen eastern states have legislation recognizing the need to conserve water
supplies.
17. Basin transfers and drought. Diversions are strategic measures designed to increase water
supply reliability. During a severe drought, if the necessary facilities exist and the state law allows,
temporary interbasin diversions may be authorized to meet the needs of the most severely affected
areas.
Lessons from the Case Studies
18. Domestic water users are willing and able to curtail water use during a drought. During the
first two years of the drought, a mixture of voluntary and mandatory conservation in California’s
cities reduced water use from 10 to 25%. In the last three years of the drought, urban conservation
efforts were generally more intense. Similar savings were recorded in Seattle and Tacoma,
Washington in their 1992 drought.
19. Investments in infrastructure can increase the options for adaptive behavior. Water banking,
storage for instream flow maintenance, conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water, regional
interdependence, and economies of scale require a water storage, allocation and distribution system.
California’s storage and distribution system provided the flexibility and resiliency to withstand severe
droughts, even in the face of rapidly growing population and increasing urban and environmental
demands on a fixed supply of water.
20. Droughts act as catalysts for change. Complex sociopolitical systems, which reflect a multitude
of competing and conflicting needs, are not particularly well suited for crisis management. Yet despite
these well understood and accepted deficiencies in the democratic decision making process, the overall
conclusion is that communities not only weathered the drought in a reasonably organized manner, but
also introduced a series of useful water management reforms and innovations that will influence future
water uses in a positive manner.
21. Conservation may or may not reduce drought vulnerability. To the extent that methods of
reducing water use during droughts, such as discouragement of outdoor use and physical
modifications to toilets and faucets to reduce water use, are used as long term water conservation
measures that allow the addition of new customers to a water supply system, drought vulnerability
is increased. When normal use becomes more efficient, efficiency gains are harder to realize during a
drought. But it is not always that simple. In the Boston Metropolitan area, for example, long term
conservation will reduce drought vulnerability because some of the water saved will also be stored for
use during droughts and because some of the most effective long term conservation savings (such as
the detection and repair of leaks) cannot be implemented quickly enough to be as effective as a drought
response.
The DPS Method
22. The lineage of the DPS method. The DPS method is derived from the traditional strategic water
resources planning framework, but addresses two common shortcomings in water management: the
separation between stakeholders and the problem solving process, and the subdivision of natural
resources management by political boundaries and limited agency missions.
23. Drought responses are primarily behavioral. The DPS method reflects the fact that, like
responses to earthquakes and fires, drought responses are largely behavioral, and their success
depends on people understanding their role, and knowing how their actions fit into a larger response.
24. Collaboration between agencies and stakeholders can make planning much more effective.
This collaborative approach:
25. Lessons learned from past efforts at collaborative planning are abundant and must be heeded. The benefits of participatory planning are not guaranteed by simply making the planning process accessible. There is a substantial body of research and practical experience with participatory planning, especially in water resources, that is often overlooked. The temptation is to believe that honesty and common sense will suffice. The participatory methods used and developed during the Drought Study recognized and managed these potential liabilities:
26. The problem solving team should be appropriate to the problem set. Rarely will there be one
agency or political entity whose responsibilities include all the problems a region will face during
future droughts. The creation of the DPS team, then, is the creation of a new entity whose collective
interests and responsibilities are pertinent to the set of problems addressed. Thus, the DPS team
constitutes a new, integrated community that more closely reflects the integrated nature of the
problemshed.
27. The objectives for the drought response must be articulated early and clearly. The DPS
method uses 5 management parameters including the criteria decision makers will use in approving or
rejecting new plans, planning objectives, constraints, measures of performance, and environmental,
economic, and social effects. Developing good planning objectives early is paradoxically the most
important and most often ignored step in the drought planning process.
28. Innovations. The DPS method takes advantage of several innovations developed in parallel
during the National Drought Study:
29. Shared vision models are computer simulation models of water systems built, reviewed, and
tested collaboratively with all stakeholders. The models represent not only the water infrastructure
and operation, but the most important effects of that system on society and the environment. Shared
vision models take advantage of new, user-friendly, graphical simulation software to bridge the gap
between specialized water models and the human decision making processes. Shared vision models
helped DPS team members overcome differences in backgrounds, values, and agency traditions.
30. A Virtual Drought Exercise is a realistic simulation of a drought using the shared vision model
to simulate that experience without the risk associated with real droughts. Virtual Drought Exercises
can be used to exercise, refine and test plans, train new staff, and update plans to reflect new
information.
31. The National Drought Atlas (IWR, 94-NDS-4) is a compendium of statistical information
designed to help water managers and planners answer questions about the expected frequency,
duration and severity of droughts. The Atlas provides a national reference for precipitation and
streamflow statistics that will help planners and manage assess the risks involved in alternative
management strategies.
32. Water conservation management is the prioritization and selection of water conservation
measures based on their estimated benefits and costs. A new version of a widely used water use
forecasting model, IWR-MAIN, provides a powerful new tool for linking water savings with specific
combinations of water savings measures.
33. Trigger Planning is a collaborative and continuous process for updating water supply needs
assessments and responding in time, but just in time, with the necessary economic and environmental
investments necessary to address those needs. Trigger planning uses a shared vision model and the
DPS method to minimize those investments while reducing the frequency of drought declarations
caused by inadequate water supply. Trigger planning was tested and refined in the Boston
metropolitan area.
34. There are simple ways to improve agency collaboration with elected officials and
stakeholders. The DPS method used “circles of influence” to effectively and efficiently involve
stakeholders in the development of plans. The circles created new ways for people to interrelate and
interact, without destroying the old institutions, their responsibilities or advantages. In addition,
during the DPS’s, political scientists conducted interviews with elected officials and other influential
political agents. The interviews were included in reports available to the entire study team, and were
used to assure the planning process addressed issues critical to the public and elected officials.
Table of Contents FINDINGS OF THE NATIONAL DROUGHT STUDY ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FOREWORD INTRODUCTION The larger context for water management during drought; Who should use this guide?; How should this guide be used?; When should the DPS method be used?; What are these methods based on? 1 WATER MANAGEMENT AND DROUGHT The Meaning of the Word “Drought”; A water resources planner’s view of drought; A water manager’s view of drought; The rules for making decisions, including decisions about water management during drought; Goals and objectives for managing water; Other common concepts in water management 2 THE DPS METHOD Major features of the DPS method; Organization of a DPS; Levels of detail and cost; The Seven Steps of the DPS Method; Computer model building and stakeholder involvement; Group processes 3 BUILD A TEAM, IDENTIFY PROBLEMS Makeup of the team; Starting the DPS; Finding stakeholders; Potential Problems of Broad Involvement; Circles of influence; The problems 4 OBJECTIVES AND METRICS Management; Decision criteria; Goals and planning objectives; Constraints; Performance Measures; Effects of the alternatives; Accounts; Resistance to the use of estimated effects in the evaluation of alternatives; Advantages of the measuring effects by account 5 THE STATUS QUO Modeling the status quo; Selecting design drought(s); The National Drought Atlas; Specialized Computer Models 6 FORMULATING ALTERNATIVE PLANS What is an alternative?; Three types of alternatives; Initial list of alternatives; Elements of a tactical drought plan; Integrating strategic and tactical plans 7 EVALUATING ALTERNATIVES Initial screening of alternatives; Modeling; Estimating effects; Tradeoffs across accounts; Decision Support Software 8 INSTITUTIONALIZING THE PLAN Recommending a plan; Changes in laws and regulations; Environmental review; Negotiating Closure; The Agreement 9 EXERCISE, UPDATE, AND USE THE PLAN Virtual Drought Exercise; Using the plan 10 CONCLUSION DPS Planning Process Checklist INDEX LIST OF ANNEXES Annexes Following the Main Report A - ORIGINS OF FEDERAL WATER RESOURCES PLANNING GUIDANCE B - POLITICS, ADVOCACY GROUPS, AND WATER AGENCIES C - COMPUTER MODELS OF WATER AND RELATED SYSTEMS D - WATER LAW AND DROUGHT E - ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATIONS: KEY ISSUES FROM THE CASE STUDIES F - ECONOMIC EVALUATIONS: KEY ISSUES FROM THE CASE STUDIES G - HYDROLOGY H - ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION I - DROUGHT AND THE PUBLIC J - CONCEPTUAL BASIS FOR CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE K - FORECASTING WATER USE TO MANAGE WATER CONSERVATION L - LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE CALIFORNIA DROUGHT 1987-1992 M - THE PRINCIPAL NATIONAL DROUGHT STUDY CASE STUDIES N - THE NATIONAL DROUGHT ATLAS
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