Description
Other: The National Drought Mitigation Center, based at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, established the Drought Impact Reporter (DIR; https://go.unl.edu/DIRdash) as a national archive of drought impacts. The majority of impacts, particularly in recent years, have been culled from news media. Impacts from other sources now appear as separate tools in the Drought Impacts Toolkit (https://droughtimpacts.unl.edu). The DIR has been updated continuously since its launch in July 2005, relying on expert curation and data entry, with at least one dedicated staff position. It includes some historic impacts that occurred before 2005. Each impact includes a title, description, start date, optional end date, one or more categories (sectors) of impact, one or more locations, and attribution to source. Categories include: agriculture; business & industry; energy; fire; plants & wildlife; relief, response & restrictions; society & public health; tourism & recreation; and water supply & quality. Locations can be one or more states, counties, or cities. The final data collection presented here occurred on November 20, 2025.