On RFD-TV: Curtis Riganti
University Communication
Author
08/27/2020
Added
26
Plays
Description
Climatologist Curtis Riganti from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's National Drought Mitigation Center appears live on RFD-TV, August 25, 2020. The center asks people across the country to submit photos on Labor day to populate the online Visual Drought Atlas.
Searchable Transcript
Toggle between list and paragraph view.
- [00:00:00.490]Right now there's an effort underway
- [00:00:02.560]to combat drought around the world,
- [00:00:04.440]but researchers in the Heartland need your help
- [00:00:07.610]in documenting conditions.
- [00:00:09.660]Curtis Riganti from the National Drought Mitigation Center
- [00:00:13.900]joins us now to explain how you can contribute
- [00:00:16.220]to the research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
- [00:00:19.480]Well, thank you very much for joining us
- [00:00:20.770]this morning, Curtis, welcome.
- [00:00:22.080]What is the Visual Drought Atlas and how does it work?
- [00:00:27.140]Sure, good morning, John.
- [00:00:28.480]Thanks for having me on this morning.
- [00:00:30.370]So the Visual Drought Atlas is a collection of photographs
- [00:00:34.630]that we collect from the general public
- [00:00:37.780]to help us identify areas where drought conditions
- [00:00:42.050]may or may not be taking place at a particular time.
- [00:00:45.110]And so, we ask people to submit their photographs
- [00:00:48.810]of basically landscape areas,
- [00:00:51.940]looking in four different cardinal directions,
- [00:00:53.800]so north, south, east, west,
- [00:00:55.560]then a picture looking down and a picture looking up,
- [00:00:58.750]and we ask them to submit those to our website
- [00:01:01.830]at go.unl.edu/photoatlas.
- [00:01:06.940]And so what we're looking to do is identify
- [00:01:10.460]what baseline conditions are, what normal conditions are
- [00:01:14.240]for a landscape, so then when there's drought
- [00:01:17.490]or wet conditions going on, we can identify
- [00:01:20.880]hey, this area looks drier than normal,
- [00:01:23.540]and we can then ask users how dry does it seem
- [00:01:27.220]compared to normal, or how wet
- [00:01:28.910]does it seem compared to normal?
- [00:01:30.980]And so we ask people to submit these photos
- [00:01:34.240]on four separate holidays, so Presidents Day,
- [00:01:37.440]Memorial Day, the 4th of July, and over Labor Day,
- [00:01:41.600]because we're looking to get basically a snapshot
- [00:01:44.050]of what conditions are like at different times of year
- [00:01:47.240]and at consistent times of year.
- [00:01:49.780]Curtis, why are submissions from the public
- [00:01:51.640]so valuable, then?
- [00:01:54.020]Yeah, so submissions from the public are valuable
- [00:01:56.370]because we need extra data
- [00:01:58.660]in order to basically see
- [00:02:02.110]between areas that we have instrumentation
- [00:02:04.630]looking at drought data,
- [00:02:06.440]and so we want to understand really
- [00:02:10.200]what abnormally dry and drought conditions
- [00:02:14.260]of different severities look like,
- [00:02:16.430]and we want to be able to put this into historical context,
- [00:02:20.730]and so in order to do that,
- [00:02:22.210]we need a consistent and long period of record for pictures,
- [00:02:26.630]so as many pictures people can send us consistently
- [00:02:30.020]in the same place, that helps us to identify
- [00:02:32.710]what normal conditions might look like
- [00:02:35.640]and then we can compare pictures of landscapes
- [00:02:39.750]combined with people's descriptions of those conditions
- [00:02:43.430]to learn more about what severely dry conditions
- [00:02:46.860]actually look like in different parts of the country.
- [00:02:50.860]So why is it important for researchers
- [00:02:52.750]to identify drought?
- [00:02:55.210]Yeah, so in order--
- [00:02:57.423]It's important for several reasons.
- [00:02:59.140]First, we want to be able to monitor drought
- [00:03:01.970]going on in different areas,
- [00:03:03.350]so that we can help identify areas that are
- [00:03:06.430]perhaps in need of aid
- [00:03:07.810]or just different reasons like that,
- [00:03:10.360]and then, secondly, our goal at
- [00:03:12.400]the National Drought Mitigation Center,
- [00:03:14.460]in addition to monitoring drought,
- [00:03:16.290]is to help build resilience to drought through planning.
- [00:03:19.820]So we help agriculture producers, cities,
- [00:03:22.930]and other forms of government
- [00:03:24.700]to help come up with different drought plans.
- [00:03:27.830]And so, if we're able to monitor drought
- [00:03:29.870]and learn more about the effects that drought has
- [00:03:32.750]in different areas, we can do a better job
- [00:03:35.630]of both monitoring drought that is going on
- [00:03:38.450]as well as planning for future drought.
- [00:03:40.880]Well, Curtis, thanks a lot, sure appreciate it.
- [00:03:42.820]Climatologist Curtis Riganti
- [00:03:44.600]from the National Drought Mitigation Center,
- [00:03:47.020]and thank you very much for joining us here
- [00:03:48.760]on the Market Day Report.
The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!
You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.
Log in to post comments
Embed
Copy the following code into your page
HTML
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%; overflow: hidden; position:relative; -webkit-box-flex: 1; flex-grow: 1;">
<iframe
style="bottom: 0; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; border: 0; height: 100%; width: 100%;"
src="https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/14263?format=iframe&autoplay=0"
title="Video Player: On RFD-TV: Curtis Riganti "
allowfullscreen
></iframe>
</div>
Comments
0 Comments