STILLWATER — It is unlikely a wheat producer living in rural Oklahoma and an accountant comfortably settled in one of the state’s urban centers will view drought in the same way. More to the point, drought is in the eye of the beholder. “If you’re a rancher or farmer it can be something that damages your crops or pasture or makes your farm pond go dry or low,” said Gary McManus, state climatologist for the Oklahoma Mesonet. “If you’re a lake manager or water manager for a city, it’s something that can drain your lake or cause it to not fill up when you really need that recharge If you’re a tourism director, it can cause people not to come to your state.” Every segment of the population will feel the effects of an extended period of no precipitation, and despite harboring vastly different perspectives on the potentially devastating natural phenomenon known as drought, the best chance of successfully managing its effects lies in a concerted all-hands-on-deck approach. “We’re all in this,” said Saleh Taghvaeian, assistant professor and Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension specialist in water resources. “The drought impacts all of us — agriculture, urban populations, industry — so we have to take all the measures we can to be ready and prepared for the next drought.” To be clear, the stakes are serious. Water is not the limitless natural resource it appears to be when a faucet, sprinkler or irrigation system is turned on. As evidence, consider Taghvaeian’s recent research on previous droughts in Oklahoma and their impact on irrigated agriculture. Part of the findings indicate that over the past 15 years in the Oklahoma Panhandle, where producers rely on the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation, the aquifer’s water levels have dropped about 18 feet on average. However, 60 percent of that decline occurred during four years of the most recent drought from 2011 to 2015. “In parts of the state that have access to groundwater they can pump during drought, it’s usually a more rapid decline of water resources during drought years,” Taghvaeian said. “It’ll impact the future of that water resource and its availability in that region.” Particularly in the case of groundwater resources, which are harder to quantify because they are below the surface, Taghvaeian said people should think of it like a savings account. “During…