The Drought of 2012 made some unpleasant new records in
Illinois history. Shipping nearly halted on the Mississippi, drinking water
supplies dwindled in the City of Decatur, crops withered, and Lake Michigan reached
its lowest level ever recorded.
But it also inspired the development of
collaborations among the Illinois academic community and the state and federal
agencies working on water management. To help foster these connections, the
Illinois Water Resources Center is hosting a Drought Workshop on October 1,
2013 as part of the festivities at the Governor’s Conference on the Management
of the Illinois River System in Peoria, IL. The goals of the workshop are to
identify the data needs and research gaps for agency management of drought and
develop a white paper of possible solutions and actions.
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| Drought of 2012--photo by Irene Miles |
List of Speakers
- Overview—Dr. Brain Miller, Director, Illinois Water Resources Center/ Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant
- Deficiencies in Illinois’s Drought Response Authorities—Arlan Juhl, Director, Office of Water Resources, Illinois Department of Natural Resources
- Challenges in Forecasting and Monitoring the 2012 Drought—Dr. Jim Angel, State Climatologist, Illinois State Water Survey
- USGS Water Monitoring to Support the State of Illinois Governor’s Drought Response Task Force during the Drought of 2012—Gary Johnson, Chief, Hydrology Data Section, Illinois Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey
- NRCS Needs and Recommendations for Drought Related Agricultural Research—Kerry Goodrich, State Resource Conservationist, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
- Drought Management Strategies for the Chicago Metro Area—Dr. Martin Jaffe, University of Illinois Chicago/ Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant
- The Value of Hydroclimatic Forecasts for Agricultural Drought Mitigation and Preparedness—Dr. Ximing Cai, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Workshop attendance is FREE, but does require registration.
To register, contact the Illinois Water Resources Center (iwrc@uiuc.edu) or choose the Illinois Drought
Workshop option under the registration
page of the Governor’s Conference on the Management of the Illinois River
System.
The Workshop will be held from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the
Four Points by Sheraton Hotel in Peoria, IL, room number forthcoming. Full
information regarding the Governor’s Conference on the Management of the
Illinois River System is available here.
