NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) has awarded $1.95 million in funding for projects to support tribal drought resilience as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. This investment will help tribal nations address current and future drought risk on tribal lands across the Western U.S. while informing decision-making and strengthening tribal drought resilience in a changing climate. 

According to the latest figures from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, the U.S. has sustained 400 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters since 1980, including 31 billion-dollar drought events. These new funds will support projects by tribal nations to help understand and mitigate drought impacts to the land, water supply, traditional foods, and cultural practices. 

The funding supports four projects led by tribal nations that own lands within the American West, including the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington, the Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana, and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.

“Indigenous experiences and perspectives of drought vary greatly across the United States,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System recognizes that tribal communities face unique drought challenges and opportunities, requiring customized approaches, tools, and data that integrate Indigenous Knowledge and cultural, medicinal, and spiritual values.”

To effectively address tribal needs as mandated by the NIDIS Public Law, NIDIS and partners developed the NIDIS Tribal Drought Engagement Strategy: 2021-2025 in consultation with tribal partners. These awards address needs identified in this strategy. 

“NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System supports enhancing drought resilience with tribal partners in the West,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “We are pleased to provide funds to support drought planning and risk mitigation, helping tribal communities prepare for and manage the impacts of drought.”

The projects will address key needs of tribal nations and communities:

• Identification and mitigation of current and future drought impacts on the water supply of the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe and ecological function of the Snoqualmie River. 
• Development of a drought contingency plan for the Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy Reservation, including conservation of sweetgrass, a culturally important wetland plant which can help build resilience to drought.
• Improved drought monitoring, forecasting, and resilience for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation to include the development of a comprehensive long-term drought monitoring and resilience plan.
• Investigation of information and tools needed by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe to maintain a sustainable water supply on their reservation to include groundwater modeling and the feasibility of aquifer recharge.  

These projects are crucial to these tribal nations building resilience to drought conditions and, where appropriate, the outcomes and lessons learned will be shared with tribal nations and communities across the West.

The four new projects funded by the NIDIS program are:

Snoqualmie DROUT: Snoqualmie Drought Resilience for OUr Tribe 

• Project: The goal of this work is to identify current and future drought impacts on the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe (SIT) water supply and ecological functioning of the Snoqualmie River, develop a drought indicator strategy, and identify mitigation strategies to minimize drought impacts. This project will contribute directly to the drought resilience of the SIT and the resources of the SIT’s ancestral lands, as well as other members of the Snoqualmie Valley community, by beginning to address an unmet need for drought coordination in the Snoqualmie watershed.
• Background: The SIT has a reservation located approximately 25 miles east of Seattle, Washington on the west side of the Cascade Mountains within the Snoqualmie River basin in the headwaters of the Snohomish River Basin. The SIT depends on groundwater wells for water supply within the Snoqualmie Reservation, and from time immemorial, the SIT has also advocated for the preservation and enhancement of ecological functions of the Snoqualmie River watershed. This watershed is home to Endangered Species Act–protected salmon and steelhead, resident cold-water fish populations, and supports fisheries and traditional natural and cultural resources for Coast Salish people including the SIT. The watershed has been degraded over the years due to land clearing and development, stream and river channelization, dredging and drainage projects, and reduction in summer flows due to agricultural, residential, and commercial use of the basin’s water. Climate forecasts indicate increasingly frequent and severe droughts may be expected in the Snoqualmie watershed, which, coupled with increasing demand for domestic, agricultural, and industrial water supply, may impact availability of water for tribal needs at the SIT Reservation and further degrade the productivity of cold-water fish habitat throughout the Snoqualmie basin. 
• Project Principal Investigator (PI): Matthew Baerwalde, Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, Environmental and Natural Resources Department (Snoqualmie, WA 98065)
• Co-PI: Scott Kindred, Kindred Hydro, Inc. (Mercer Island, WA 98040)
• Award Amount: $338,733

Drought Resilience Planning and Assisted Migration of Imperiled Sweetgrass Populations on the Rocky Boy Reservation, North-Central Montana 

• Project: Through this project, the Chippewa-Cree Tribe will develop a Drought Contingency Plan that can be used for immediate management actions. The project team will incorporate drought planning into a finalized version of the Chippewa-Cree Tribe's Climate Change Plan, which will also include planning and implementation of specific drought resiliency projects over the next three years. The team’s priority drought resiliency project is to implement an assisted migration sweetgrass monitoring project over a 3-year period, to protect and conserve imperiled sweetgrass populations, which have shown steep declines during the past 12 years. 
• Background: The Rocky Boy Reservation of the Chippewa-Cree Tribe is located in north-central Montana within the Bear Paw Mountains, a region of climate extremes, with periodic severe droughts. In recent years, the Reservation has been subjected to more frequent droughts, accompanied by increasing warming temperature trends. The third, fifth, and seventh most severe droughts (over a 128-year period) all occurred during the last 8 years. Two recent droughts occurred during the third and fifth warmest years on record (2017 and 2021). Consecutive years of precipitation deficits and warming temperatures are of great concern for Tribal water supplies, local livestock production, and cultural-traditional natural resources. Locally imperiled sweetgrass populations, the Chippewa-Cree Tribe’s most important cultural plant species, are restricted to wetlands habitats that are especially vulnerable to increasing frequency and intensity of drought and climate change. 
• Project PI: Bubby Gopher, Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy Reservation (Box Elder, MT 59521)
• Co-PI: Keith Gopher, Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy Reservation (Box Elder, MT 59521) 
• Co-PI: Tara Luna, Rocky Mountain Botany Consulting (East Glacier Park, MT 59434)
• Award Amount: $449,831

Colville Tribes Collaborative Drought Monitoring and Resilience Planning Project

• Project: The effects of drought on Tribal resources have been observed and documented through limited studies conducted in the past. These studies demonstrate the clear need for a more robust drought monitoring system covering the 1.4 million acres of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation than has been present so far. The primary goal of this project is to improve drought monitoring, forecasting, and resilience for the Reservation. To achieve this goal, the Tribe intends to develop a comprehensive long-term drought monitoring and resilience plan, which will enhance and inform the Tribe’s climate change mitigation and implementation program to safeguard its communities and natural resources. 
• Background: The Colville Tribes’ members are facing escalating challenges due to increased frequency and severity of drought caused by climate change. This issue is especially urgent to the Tribe as drought has begun, and is expected to continue, to affect their natural resources adversely. Their natural resources provide the Tribe with cultural grounding, food security, and economic prosperity. Prolonged drought will have a significant impact on the Reservation and its people, including disruption to cultural ceremonies, declines in traditional food sources, exacerbated wildfires, and degradation of habitats. 
• Project PI: Rowena St. Pierre, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Natural Resources Department (Nespelem, WA 99155)
• Co-PI: Dennis Moore, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (Nespelem, WA 99155)
• Award Amount: $695,917

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe Drought Trends Analysis and Groundwater Recharge Implementation Plan

• Project: This project will address the pressing challenge of climate change impacts on water resources for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. The region faces heightened drought risks due to changing climate patterns, and groundwater is a critical resource in times of drought. The Great Plains, and particularly the Rosebud Reservation, grapple with semi-arid conditions and variable precipitation, amplifying vulnerability to climate change as drought conditions become more frequent and severe. Economic activities, such as ranching and farming, hinge on groundwater from the High Plains aquifer. 
• Background: The Rosebud Sioux Tribe seeks to better understand its vulnerability to future drought and strengthen its water resilience in the face of climatic uncertainties. The overarching goal of the project is to provide the Rosebud Sioux Tribe with the information and tools needed to maintain a sustainable water supply on their reservation. Options will be investigated to increase the supply of groundwater on the reservation through tools like managed aquifer recharge of periodically available excess surface water. Conclusions of this effort will be supported by groundwater modeling to evaluate adaptation options to increase the resiliency of the water supply and will be a resource for decision-makers, water users, and the general public.
• Project PI: Syed Huq, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Office of Water Resources (Rosebud, SD 57570)
• Award Amount: $467,733

NIDIS, authorized in 2006, is a multi-agency partnership that coordinates drought monitoring, forecasting, planning and information at national, state and local levels across the country. NIDIS aims to help the nation move to an increasingly proactive approach to understand and manage drought risks and impacts, and to improve long-term drought resilience.

Visit NOAA’s Inflation Reduction Act website to learn about current and future funding opportunities. Visit the NIDIS Coping with Drought research competition web page to learn more about current and future NIDIS competitions. 

For more information, please contact Britt Parker, NOAA/NIDIS.