LINCOLN- Even though drought conditions have eased in Nebraska in recent months, the state needs to update its 23-year-old drought response plan, members of a state climate committee claims. Mark Svoboda, the director of the National Drought Mitigation Center, based at UNL, said several states have updated their drought response plans in recent years, including Iowa and South Dakota.

But Nebraska, Svoboda said, still relies on a plan from 2000, one that doesn’t have the rich store of data now available and one that doesn’t provide great guidance on how to avoid or respond to a drought. “I fear that we’re missing out on being ahead of the curve,” he told fellow members of the State Climate Assessment Response Committee (CARC). “You want to be proactive, and not reactive.”

While Nebraska’s natural resources districts already monitor groundwater use and issue directives if water is short, Svoboda said that a state drought plan would encompass a wider scope than just irrigation. Steps to update the state’s drought management plan come as Nebraska is developing a Climate Pollution Reduction Plan, utilizing a $3 million grant as part of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

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