Developing High-Resolution Soil Moisture Projections for the Contiguous U.S.

Ecological drought impacts ecosystems across the U.S. that support a wide array of economic activity and ecosystem services. Managing drought-vulnerable natural resources is a growing challenge for federal, state and Tribal land managers.  Plant communities and animal populations are strongly linked to patterns of drought and soil moisture availability.  As a result, ecosystems may be heavily altered by future changes in precipitation and soil moisture that are driven by climate change.  Although this vulnerability is well recognized, developing accurate information about the potential consequences of climate change for ecological drought is difficult because the soil moisture conditions that plants experience are shaped by complex interactions among weather, atmospheric CO₂, plants and soils. There are currently very few ecologically appropriate datasets about future drought with widespread distribution at resolutions suitable for informing natural resource decision making. 



This project will meet some of those needs by simulating complex interactions that affect soil moisture availability to plants and generating user-relevant soil moisture projections.  Results will include detailed and synthesized drought information for the 21st century across the entire contiguous U.S. that are delivered via the Climate Toolbox, an established source for long-term climate projections. Data provided by this project will be useful for a wide variety of applications including scenario planning, species distribution models, and ecological drought and habitat vulnerability assessments.