Key Findings

1. The definition of drought should be expanded to focus on the four types of droughts and how they affect the people of the state.

2. Drought declarations should include monitoring of groundwater and soil moisture levels, in addition to measuring yearly rain and snow levels.

3. Seasonal transfers of water permits should be opened to include a larger geographical destination, not arbitrarily limited by property boundaries.

4. The drought declaration process should be accelerated so official decisions are made as early as possible in the growing season.

Introduction

Much of Eastern Washington has been in a state of drought since 2019, with the most intense period of the drought recorded the week of August 3, 2021.Washington state officials define “drought” as water availability falling below 75 percent of average use and when water depletion may create hardships for community residents.

Current water supply conditions have prompted the Water Supply Advisory Committee, to alter and extend the drought emergency in several Eastern Washington counties.The current approach to drought declarations involves an assessment of surface water availability, rainfall, and snowpack.

The advisory committee is convened by the state Department of Ecology and is made up of state and federal experts who evaluate statewide water supply conditions.

State experts give little consideration to soil moisture, operational conditions, and functional data input from those with on-the-ground experience. These factors are important indicators of the impact of water shortage on agriculture. Soil moisture, operational conditions, and functional data input all offer in-depth information that are not found in water availability, rainfall, and snowpack reports. Specifically, when considering soil moisture and operational conditions in semi-arid parts of the state, an understanding of moisture depth and soil recharge could be taken into account to produce a fuller report of water availability conditions.

Read the full Policy Note here.