Farmers are heading into the spring planting season with drought covering a good portion of the western half of the country. A new study looking into the problem shows dry periods between rain have become longer in the West. It also says yearly rainfall has become more erratic across most of the western U.S. over the past 50 years.
The newly released information is according to research from the USDA’s Ag Research Service and the University of Arizona. Researchers report total yearly rainfall has decreased an average of four inches over the last half century.
“Consistency of rainfall, or the lack of it, is often more important than the total amount of rain when it comes to forage continuing to grow for livestock and wildlife, for dryland farmers to produce crops, and for the mitigation of wildfire risks,” says Joel Biederman, a research hydrologist with the ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center in Tucson, Arizona.
The researchers also say the greatest changes in drought length have taken place in the desert Southwest where the average dry period between storms has grown to 45 days.
“We were surprised to find widespread changes in precipitation have already occurred across large regions of the West. For regions such as the desert Southwest, where changes clearly indicate a trend towards longer, more erratic droughts, research is urgently needed to help mitigate detrimental impacts on ecosystem carbon uptake, forage availability, wildfire activity, and water availability for people,” said co-senior author William K. Smith, assistant professor, University of Arizona.
