During recent droughts in North Carolina, decision makers have articulated needs for drought information, including current or anticipated impacts, geographic extent and timing, and how and who monitors drought in the state. This is despite the abundance of online information and data that can answer these questions. Feedback from sectors heavily impacted by drought in the state - namely, agriculture, forestry, and water resources - suggests that information users perceive existing drought information as unavailable, inaccessible, or insufficient to meet their needs. We are collaborating on a project to increase the accessibility of existing information through the development of resources that resonate with water resource managers, extension agents, and other decision makers in North Carolina, are discoverable through their preferred communication channels, and help them and their constituents better understand and respond to drought events. We identified and prioritized new information resource ideas through an initial needs assessment conducted via surveys and webinars with stakeholders in target sectors. We then developed and refined prototypes (e.g., infographics, factsheets, story maps) through multiple rounds of feedback, which included focus group discussions and eye tracking studies. Key findings of the project include (1) scientific information must be translated into less-technical terms to be useful, but users must be able to connect to the original source of the information; (2) decision makers want current conditions placed into a longer temporal context that includes the recent past (trends over past weeks to months) and anticipated changes to conditions in the future (forecasts with lead times of days to months); and (3) despite the increasing popularity of social media as a way to share information, more traditional formats (e.g., local broadcast and news media, websites) are still valuable to decision makers. In this presentation, we will describe project outcomes, including our process for engaging with decision makers to co-produce new drought information resources and strategies for creating and disseminating these to ensure that they will last beyond the project’s end date.

During recent droughts in North Carolina, various audiences have articulated needs for information that explains current or anticipated impacts, droughts’ geographic extent and timing, and how the State monitors drought. This is despite there being a regular process in place to evaluate statewide conditions and seemingly abundant information available through federal, state, and local agency websites; media outlets; and other channels. This presentation provides findings from a research project designed to improve the availability, understandability, and usability of drought communications products for North Carolina audiences, focusing on the US Drought Monitor map of North Carolina as an example. The North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council (DMAC) technical committee has met weekly to assess drought conditions since the 1990s and has recommended the state’s drought designations to the US Drought Monitor since 2000. The DMAC recommendations typically align with the weekly USDM map. Through surveys, focus groups, usability studies, and other engagement methods, we collected information from groups such as extension agents and water utility staff about 1) their communications preferences - resources that are concise, easily readable, and readily shareable through email, listservs, and social media - and 2) infographic prototypes created to address those preferences. User feedback on the prototypes informed iterative refinements to their content and design and provided information about their potential use for communications and management decisions. Ultimately, understanding the monitoring process and how drought designations are made was a key factor affecting the extent to which extension and other communication professionals apply, share, and value the information produced by monitoring groups and scientific agencies. This research suggests that addressing transparency questions can support efforts to communicate complex problems, such as drought.