Purpose of New Mexico Drought Plan

    The purpose of this plan is to provide New Mexico with a framework for an integrated approach to minimize the impacts of drought on its people and resources. The plan outlines both long- and short-term measures that are to be used to mitigate the effects of drought and respond to drought conditions. To accomplish this goal the New Mexico Drought Plan:

• defines a process to be followed in addressing drought and drought-related activities,
  including monitoring, vulnerability assessment and mitigation, and
  impact assessment and response;
• identifies long- and short-term activities that can be implemented to minimize and
  prevent drought impacts;
• identifies the local, state, federal and private sector entities that are involved with state
  drought management and defines their responsibilities; and
• acts as a catalyst for creation and implementation of local drought planning
  and response efforts.

    In designing the action strategies of the New Mexico Drought Plan, effort was made to use existing partnerships and lines of communication and the input of local New Mexico stakeholders in providing feedback as to the effectiveness of planned or implemented mitigation measures. This plan, however, should be considered a living document to which continual review, evaluation and revision must be made to reflect accomplishments, failures and changes. Moreover, because of the ever-changing staffs of state, federal and local governments, two important decisions as to the Plan’s format have been made. First, to guarantee flexibility in the Plan’s content, a loose-leaf format has been chosen as opposed to a bound document. The loose-leaf format will allow for the modification of the original Plan with the least amount of cost and delay. Second, to allow access of the Plan’s content to the largest possible audience without the need for massive document publication costs, the entire New Mexico Drought Plan has been placed on the Internet in conjunction with the New Mexico Climate Center Website (http://weather.nmsu.edu/drought/index.htm) . The Website will be the location and source of all revisions and users are encouraged to visit this site to ensure they are working from the current version of the Plan. In addition, updates on the status and progress of the Monitoring Work Group (MWG) and the Impact Assessment Work Group (IAWG) will be posted to the web site. This process will allow the greatest flexibility for the review, modification and use of the data in the Plan.