Preparing for Extreme Drought: A Special Research Highlight from Dr. Elly Gay
- Climate Science Alliance
- Apr 22
- 3 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
A special research highlight from Dr. Elly Gay, post doc from San Diego State University (SDSU) working on the Integrated Framework for Drought Response in Southern California's Natural Landscapes: Building Regional Understanding for Conservation and Natural Resource Management project.
On today's story, you'll read Elly's reflections after sharing our project at a workshop in North Carolina. Dig into the story below to learn more about the project and its efforts to support practitioners to better understand ecological and community based solutions for extreme drought.
How do we be proactive so not if but when extreme drought occurs, we are better prepared? How do we ensure the ramifications are equally shared?
These questions were central to the Drought and Aquatic Ecosystems in the Southeast workshop held at North Carolina State University (NC State) in Raleigh, North Carolina in early January. This workshop was hosted by the USGS Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center and NOAA’S National Integrated Drought Information System in support of the Southeast Drought Early Warning System. I traveled to this meeting from San Diego, California, where I am a postdoctoral scientist working on drought research at San Diego State University (SDSU). Returning to North Carolina for the conference felt like coming full circle. I spent my graduate career studying water in the Southeast, so I was excited to reconnect with a region I have called home and dive deeper into drought research and management strategies, especially those that might translate to my current work in California.
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama but made my way to the Carolinas to attend college at Furman University and graduate school at NC State. For my graduate research, I used a hydrologic model to examine how land cover and climate change affect extreme flows and water quality in the Southeast. After earning my PhD, I sought a postdoctoral position that would allow me to apply my hydrologic background to social science research on water management. This led me to the Conservation Ecology Lab at SDSU, led by Dr. Rebecca Lewison and Dr. Megan Jennings, whose work translates novel scientific findings into actionable management activities. The postdoctoral position has provided me greater insight into my own research interests as I collaborate on impactful, water-related research in Southern California.
My central research, an ecological drought project co-lead by Dr. Jennings, Dr. Lewison, and Dr. Amber Pairis (Climate Science Alliance), aims to support practitioners in planning for extreme drought in Southern California. This project disseminates ecologically relevant data and metrics through an integrated drought response framework. We are working collaboratively with two advisory groups to create this framework. Our partner advisory group, composed of members from federal, state, local, and Tribal government, as well as business/industry, academia, and non-profit organizations, helps us understand top management concerns surrounding novel drought and data access. These concerns fall into the categories of ecosystem functioning/integrity, wildfire risk, hydrologic functioning, and human communities. Our science advisory group then acts as a sounding board, ensuring we have compiled the best available data to meet these concerns. This project will culminate in an accessible framework that provides practitioners with timely metrics, data, and scenario planning tools for drought management. You can read more about the project at the Climate Science Alliance project page here.
This project directly relates to the Drought and Aquatic Ecosystems in the Southeast workshop, where I compared drought concerns, research, and management between the two regions. I found that drought is a regionally unifying phenomenon, as the majority of concerns expressed at this conference echoed conversations with our partner advisory group in the Southwest. This workshop fostered a sense of community, incorporating perspectives from people across semi-disparate fields and organizations. The atmosphere struck a unique balance, where presentations balanced scientific rigor with the feeling of shared purpose and connection. This connection was further fueled by open discussions of similar challenges and a collective desire to do good for communities and ecosystems. So what is my takeaway from the workshop and how can I apply its lessons to the ecological drought project in Southern California?
The workshop underscored a need to better understand and utilize existing drought-related data, allowing us to find knowledge gaps and effectively direct future research. This goal not only ties into data access and availability, but also the incorporation of ecological drought into management plans. Our project in Southern California seeks to achieve this goal by working with partners in direct management positions. The Southeastern meeting reiterated that we must always prioritize collaboration in drought research and management, recognizing that extreme drought will impact communities and ecosystems in complex, interconnected ways. In a time of uncertainty, in which climate models predict great variability of extreme events, we need to keep collaborating, especially across regions, on a better future for all.
Thank you Elly for sharing about your experience!
To learn more about the Integrated Framework for Drought Response in Southern California's Natural Landscapes project, visit:
