UNL will lead activities related to stakeholder engagement, evaluation of drought products from the project, and integration into drought monitoring systems. Specific efforts will focus on the…

This federal contract award is to the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska (the University of Nebraska), a U.S. state government entity and 1862 Land Grant College, to lead activities related to stakeholder engagement, evaluation of drought products, and integration into drought monitoring systems. The specific efforts will focus on the Regional Drought Management System (RDMS) for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region that was previously developed by a project co-led by the University of Nebraska.

The MENA RDMS project aims to: (1) establish regional drought monitoring and early warning systems, (2) provide drought vulnerability and impact assessments, and (3) develop actions to mitigate and respond to drought impacts. A key component is the development of a composite drought index that incorporates various modeled and remote sensing-based inputs, including the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI). This contract, awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center, has a potential value of $130,072.44 and was awarded on April 1, 2017 with a completion date of March 31, 2021. No set-aside designation was used.

UNL will lead activities related to stakeholder engagement, evaluation of drought products from the project, and integration into drought monitoring systems. Specific efforts will focus on the regional drought management system (rdms) for the middle east and north africa (mena) that was developed by an USAID- and FAO-supported project that was CO-lead by UNL. The mena rdms serves the region by: (1) establishing regional drought monitoring and early warning systems and associated information delivery systems; (2) providing assessment of drought vulnerabilities and impacts; and (3) developing actions and measures to mitigate and respond to drought impacts. The mena rdms project team (icba and UNL) works directly with a network of diversified stakeholders including water management institutions, policy makers water user associations and large agribusinesses in tunisia, jordan, lebanon and morocco. One critical part of the regional drought monitoring system is the development of a composite drought index over the mena region which ingests several modeled and remote sensing based inputs to produce monthly assessments of the current drought situation over the region. The mena rdms has requested the inclusion of ESI as one of the primary inputs for their operational composite drought index for the mena region providing an improved agricultural drought monitoring tool to agricultural stakeholders in the region.