IMPETUS: improving predictions of drought for user decision-making

Prudhomme, C., Shaffrey, L., Woollings, T., Jackson, C., Fowler, H. and Anderson, B. (2015) IMPETUS: improving predictions of drought for user decision-making. In, Andreu, Joaquín, Solera, Abel, Paredes-Arquiola, Javier, Haro-Monteagudo, David and van Lanen, Henny (eds.) Drought: Research and Science-Policy Interfacing. Croydon, London Borough of, GB. CRC Press, pp. 273-278. (doi:10.1201/b18077-47).

Abstract

Droughts have severe impacts on societies, economies, agriculture and ecosystems. Droughts are complex events, with impacts dependent on meteorological, hydrological and land surface factors as well as on water demand and management. Consequently, drought forecasting has many components: forecasting meteorological drought (deficit of rainfall), agricultural drought (soil moisture deficit) and hydrological drought (decline in surface water and groundwater), forecasting the consequences of drought for water availability and forecasting the effects of drought management. All of these are uncertain and any improvement in decision-making needs to consider all aspects of the forecast process. IMPETUS is an interdisciplinary project started in November 2014 that brings together environmental scientists from the meteorological, land surface, surface water and groundwater communities and social scientists from the water demand and forecast user communities. IMPETUS aims to improve the forecasting of UK drought on monthly to decadal timescales, which will lead to the development of improved decision-making processes. This will be achieved by improving meteorological, hydrological and water demand forecasts and how they are combined to produce drought forecasts. This contribution will present the aims and objectives of the project.

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Contributors

Author: B. Anderson

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