Whose Ground Truth Is It? Harvesting Lessons from Missouri’s 2018 Bumper Crop of Drought Observations

Authors

Kelly Helm Smith, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Mark E. Burbach, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Michael Hayes, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Patrick Guinan, University of Missouri
Andrew Tyre, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Brian Fuchs, National Drought Mitigation CenterFollow
Tonya Haigh, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Mark Svoboda, National Drought Mitigation CenterFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2021

Citation

Smith, K.H., M.E. Burbach; M.J. Hayes; P.E. Guinan; A.J. Tyre; B. Fuchs; T. Haigh; M.D. Svoboda, 2021. Whose ground truth is it? Harvesting lessons from Missouri’s 2018 bumper crop of drought observations. Weather, Climate and Society. doi: 10.1175/WCAS-D-19-0140.1

Comments

Copyright © 2021 American Meteorological Society. Used by permission.

Abstract

Drought-related decision-making and policy should go beyond numeric hydrometeorological data to incorporate information on how drought affects people, livelihoods, and ecosystems. The effects of drought are nested within environmental and human systems, and relevant data may not exist in readily accessible form. For example, drought may reduce forage growth, compounded by both late-season freezes and management decisions. An effort to gather crowdsourced drought observations in Missouri in 2018 yielded a much higher number of observations than did previous related efforts. Here we examine 1) the interests, circumstances, history, and recruitment messaging that coincided to produce a high number of reports in a short time; 2) whether and how information from volunteer observers was useful to state decision-makers and to U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) authors; and 3) potential for complementary use of stakeholder and citizen science reports in assessing trustworthiness of volunteer-provided information. State officials and the Cattlemen’s Association made requests for reports, clearly linked to improving the accuracy of the USDM and the related financial benefit. Well-timed requests provided a focus for people’s energy and a reason to invest their time. State officials made use of the dense spatial coverage that observers provided. USDM authors were very cautious about a surge of reports coinciding closely with financial incentives linked to the Livestock Forage Disaster program. An after-the-fact comparison between stakeholder reports and parallel citizen science reports suggests that the two could be complementary, with potential for developing protocols to facilitate real-time use.