Drought is a way of life in the southwestern U.S. No matter if we are talking about drought in the near term or long-term changes in climate; proactive planning and management will help ensure stewardship and sustainability of rangeland resources. Being prepared for drought and other weather extremes is probably more important now for range and livestock managers than at any time in the past. In this publication, we will walk through the steps of an easy to use framework that will help you develop a contingency plan for drought and any other ranching or natural resource management situation. The basic idea behind this style of contingency plan is to use a variety of large-scale, publically- available drought indicators to define a series of drought severity categories (contingencies) and then combine these with science-based range monitoring data along with personal on-the-ground experience of a collaborative management team to pre-determine a course of action in the event of any particular drought category occurring.
Co-development of drought contingency plans between various partners in ranch and land management is a concept currently being tested by the University of Arizona and the Tonto National Forest (Brugger and McClaran 2016). A collaborative team may consist of family members, business partners, employer and employees, or ranchers and agency personnel. Each will likely bring something useful to the planning process and by participating, will feel more “ownership” in the plan.