VegDRI Products Additional VegDRI products for rangeland decision makers and other users will be available at the VegDRI page within the Monitoring section of the NDMC website, which debuts in May 2007.

Land Cover-Specific Coverage VegDRI Products 1. “Quick View” Maps State View Regional View Complete Coverage Land Cover-Specific Coverage 1. VegDRI Range 2. VegDRI Crop

Change Between July 25 and August 8, 2006 VegDRI Products Improved Little or No Change Declined VegDRI Change Map Change Between July 25 and August 8, 2006 Northern Great Plains 2. Change Maps Prior period 2) Same period from the prior year or a specific year in past 3) Historical average

VegDRI Products 3. Area Summary Statistics

VegDRI Products 4. VegDRI Trend Line Comparisons

VegDRI Outreach Activities Objectives: Inform and educate the public about VegDRI and its potential applications. Gather feedback from users about the general utility of VegDRI for their respective application(s) and their specific informational needs. This information is used to guide the development of new VegDRI products. Gather feedback from users about the general quality and relative accuracy of the VegDRI information. “Do the VegDRI patterns and information reflect the drought conditions for your area?”

VegDRI Outreach Activities 1. Workshops (3 per year held in different states) ~20-30 Participants: ranchers, range specialists, extension agents, government officials, and climate experts 2006 (Illinois, New Mexico, and Oklahoma) 2007 (North Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming) 2008 and 2009 (TBD)

VegDRI Outreach Activities Workshops (3 per year held in different states) Listening Sessions Core groups of ~20 users that meet annually Participants: ranchers, forage specialists, extension agents, and NRD, state, and federal agency representatives

VegDRI Outreach Activities Workshops (3 per year held in different states) Listening Sessions DroughtScape quarterly newsletter Mechanism to report new VegDRI products/enhancements, applications, and research results to users. Recruiting tool to attract new users and evaluators of VegDRI. ~80 subscribers http://www.drought.unl.edu/droughtscape/droughtscapecurrent.htm

VegDRI Research Activities Crosswalk between the AVHRR & MODIS NDVI time series (and VI data from VIIRS when NPOESS is launched).

VegDRI Research Activities Crosswalk between the AVHRR & MODIS NDVI time series (and VI data from VIIRS when NPOESS is launched). 2. Evaluate the use of MODIS 250-m VI data for a higher spatial resolution VegDRI tool.

VegDRI Research Activities Crosswalk between the AVHRR & MODIS NDVI time series (and VI data from VIIRS when NPOESS is launched). 2. Evaluate the use of MODIS 250-m VI data for a higher spatial resolution VegDRI tool. 3. Investigate the utility of the MODIS 1-km Land Surface Temperature (LST) data in the VegDRI models and also to detect “flash drought” events.

VegDRI Research Activities (cont.) 4. Investigate the utility of the 500-m Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), derived from the MODIS visible red and mid-infrared bands, for drought monitoring. Gu, Y., J.F. Brown, J.P. Verdin, and B. Wardlow, (2007), A five-year analysis of MODIS ndvi and ndwi for grassland drought assessment over the central Great Plains of the United States, Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L06407, doi:10.1029/2006GL029127.

VegDRI Research Activities (cont.) National-level irrigation mapping using time-series MODIS 250-m data. Classified from 30-m Landsat ETM+ data Classified from 250-m MODIS VI data Irrigated Land – GREEN Non-Irrigated Land - GRAY Irrigated lands classified with MODIS 250-m data in RED.

VegDRI Research Activities (cont.) Evaluation of VegDRI’s accuracy using a multi-source, “convergence of evidence” approach. National-level feedback from agricultural producers, rangeland/agricultural specialists, and climate experts (USDM authors and state climatologists) USDA crop yield data (county-level) Soil moisture data (state MESONETS) Biophysical measurements (e.g., biomass, leaf area index (LAI), net primary productivity) where available (e.g., LTERs and USDA ARS)

Vegetation Outlook (VegOut) NDMC project funded by the USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) – started in the Fall 2005 Purpose: Develop a tool to provide future outlooks of general vegetation conditions based on an analysis of information that includes: 1. climate-based drought index (PDSI & SPI) 2. satellite-based VI information (Seasonal greenness from NDVI) 3. biophysical characteristics 4. oceanic indicators (~10 ENSO indices) Products: 2-, 4-, and 6-week outlooks of general vegetation conditions at a 1-km spatial resolution.

Vegetation Outlook (VegOut) AVHRR-Derived Seasonal Greenness (outlook of vegetation conditions 6 weeks in advance of August 22, 2002) AVHRR-Derived Seasonal Greenness (observed vegetation conditions on August 22, 2002)