The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) program was authorized by Congress in 2006 to coordinate and integrate drought research, building upon existing federal, tribal, state, and local partnerships in support of creating a national drought early warning information system (DEWS).
A DEWS utilizes partner networks and a wide range of federal, tribal, state, local and academic partners to make climate and drought science readily available, easily understandable and usable for decision makers; and to improve the capacity of stakeholders to better monitor, forecast, plan for and cope with the impacts of drought.