Arizona's drought planning: Focusing on adaptation

The Arizona drought planning process focuses on defining the conditions that create vulnerability to drought and identifying and encouraging potential adaptive responses. This is intended to increase the effectiveness of drought planning and reduce long-term costs related to emergencies (Wilhite et al., 2000). There are many ongoing studies within the three Arizona Universities as well as within government agencies, and stakeholder groups that are being used to identify and assess the componentsof vulnerability. The process also focuses on building institutional relationships and on an adaptive approach that incorporates new information over time. The Governor's Drought Task Force Web site, www. water.az.gov/gdtf, contains all of the drought related presentations made at the Drought Task Force meetings, as well as monthly climate updates that were initially produced by CLIMAS under its 2002-2003 El Nino-Drought (END Insight) Initiative. The monthly climate summaries, with interpretation to enhance their utility for Arizona and New Mexico, are now supported by funds from the Bureau of Reclamation.