Editorial: Serious work on drought.
Lake McConaughy shrank to only 54 percent full, with an additional decline in 2013.
Many ag producers saw groundwater levels fall, in some cases in dramatic fashion.
There’s good news of late, though.
Groundwater levels in much of the state have made major progress from 2012 due to robust precipitation.
The Platte River valley, the Panhandle and the eastern third of Nebraska have seen significant groundwater gains, the University of Nebraska- Lincoln’s Conservation and Survey Division recently reported.
Water stress returned in 2016 to some areas of central and western Nebraska, the UNL scientists reported, based on survey results from nearly 5,000 wells statewide.
A few days after the UNL researchers issued that report, another institution on the UNL campus — the National Drought Mitigation Center — put forward its inaugural annual report.
The report describes 24 drought-focused projects and 76 events the center has pursued either within our country or abroad.
These Nebraska-based institutions are making laudable contributions to local and global understanding of drought and options for coping with it.