Developing New Soil Moisture Technologies and Applications for Improving Assessments and Forecasts of Water Issues in the Southeast Such as Flash Droughts, Floods and Ecosystem Health – Georgia Phase

This project is a coordinated effort between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.  The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), the University of Florida (UF) and the University of Georgia (UGA) submitted separate but coordinated proposals to address flash drought.  UGA’s focus is on using the already developed SmartIrrigation Corn, Cotton, and a new SmartIrrigation Forages App to identify the occurrence of flash drought at 127 weather station locations in Florida, and Georgia.  For this project, flash drought is defined as a period of at least 10 days with soil moisture conditions approaching the wilting point.  The Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT), a suite of sophisticated crop growth models, will then be used to estimate levels of yield loss associated with these periods for rainfed corn, cotton, and forages.  Results will be visualized as maps of flash drought occurrence frequency and associated yield loss.  Click here for preliminary results.

Project Graduate Student:  Jasia Jannat (Ph.D.)

Funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)