The Wind River Indian Reservation in west-central Wyoming is home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, who reside near and depend on water from the streams that feed into the Wind River. In recent years, however, the region has experienced frequent severe droughts, which have impacted tribal livelihoods and cultural activities.   Scientists with the North Central Climate Science Center at Colorado State University, the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and several other university and agency partners are working closely with tribal water managers to assess how drought affects the reservation, integrating social, ecological, and hydro-climatological sciences with local knowledge. The findings were intended to help inform the creation of a climate monitoring system and drought management plan, which are being supported with additional technical and financial support from the High Plains Regional Climate Center and NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System. The drought plan integrated climate science with hydrologic, social, and ecological vulnerabilities and risks, and identify response capacities and strategies to support the Tribal Water Code and related resources management. Ultimately, the plan was designed to help the tribes ensure that agricultural and other societal needs are met during times of drought.   As part of the project, tribal water managers and the public were engaged in educational activities related to water resources and drought preparedness through joint activities with Wyoming Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research to build the tribes’ ability to respond to future drought. Additionally, the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado-Boulder and the project team evaluated team processes and outputs to document “lessons learned” from the collaborative process to support the transfer of knowledge to other tribes and non-tribal entities in the region and beyond.

UNL scientists are part of a coalition helping two American Indian tribes prepare for drought and other climate fluctuations. The tribes — the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho, both located on the Wind River Indian Reservation in western Wyoming — have worked with climate and social scientists in the past year to prepare regular climate and drought summaries for use in making water and resource decisions. A second phase, launched this summer, includes UNL's Cody Knutson and will generate a vulnerability assessment designed to help the tribes reduce the likelihood of future drought-related impacts. Read More:   http://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/unltoday/article/researchers-help-tribes-enhance-drought-and-climate-resilience/

The Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming are preparing for drought and other climate fluctuations with help from a broad coalition of scientists, including groups at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Read More:   http://drought.unl.edu/NewsOutreach/NDMCNews.aspx?id=204

The Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming are preparing for drought and other climate fluctuations with help from a broad coalition of scientists.  Read More:  https://www.drought.gov/drought/sites/drought.gov.drought/files/media/whatisnidis/Newsletter/October%202015%20v4.pdf  

The HPRCC has an established partnership with the North Central Climate Science Center (NC CSC) and has enjoyed collaborating on regional projects since its inception. Housed at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, the NC CSC is one of eight such centers that were established in 2010 within the U.S. Department of the Interior. The mission of the Climate Science Centers is to help meet the changing needs of land and resource managers across the U.S. (For more information on the Climate Science Centers, please visit: https://www.doi.gov/csc/about.) The NC CSC collaborates with a consortium of nine institutions that provide expertise in climate science and sectors impacted by climate. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where HPRCC is housed, is a member of this consortium. Read More:   http://hprcc.unl.edu/hprccquarterly/HPRCCQuarterly-Fall2015.pdf

Members of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes have been working with an interdisciplinary team of social, ecological, and climate scientists from the North Central CSC, the High Plains Regional Climate Center, and the National Drought Mitigation Center along with other university and agency partners to prepare regular climate and drought summaries to aid in managing water resources on the Wind River Reservation and in surrounding areas. 

Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/WCAS-D-15-0042.1): Drought is a natural part of the historical climate variability in the northern Rocky Mountains and high plains region of the United States. However, recent drought impacts and climate change projections have increased the need for a systematized way to document and understand drought in a manner that is meaningful to public land and resource managers. The purpose of this exploratory study was to characterize the ways in which some federal and tribal natural resource managers experienced and dealt with drought on lands managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and tribes in two case site examples (northwest Colorado and southwest South Dakota) that have experienced high drought exposure in the last two decades. The authors employed a social–ecological system framework, whereby key informant interviews and local and regional drought indicator data were used characterize the social and ecological factors that contribute to drought vulnerability and the ways in which drought onset, persistence, severity, and recovery impact management. Results indicated that local differences in the timing, decisions, and specific management targets defined within the local social–ecological natural resource contexts are critical to understanding drought impacts, vulnerabilities, and responses. These findings suggest that manager-defined social–ecological contexts are critically important to understand how drought is experienced across the landscape and the indices that are needed to inform adaptation and response strategies.

The NC CSC project "Wind River Indian Reservation’s (WRIR) Vulnerability to the Impacts of Drought and the Development of Decision Tools to Support Drought Preparedness" supports tribal resource managers working with university and government partners to co-develop science, decision support tools, and a management plan for drought.