Weekly Wave: NASA-Navajo Nation Collaborate on New Drought Reporting Tool

On January 20, 2021, the WRRC hosted Dr. Amber McCullum, a researcher in the Earth Science Division at NASA, and Nikki Tulley, a PhD student in the Department of Environmental Science at UArizona, who co-presented “Collaborative Capacity Building and Sovereign Science with NASA and the Navajo Nation.” McCullum explained that NASA uses remote sensors on satellites to collect data, such as rainfall and vegetation, by detecting reflected energy from Earth. NASA has developed programs and trainings with various partners to empower communities by using satellite data. McCullum and Tulley collaborated last summer on NASA's Navajo Nation Drought Project, which "aims to provide the Navajo people with useful data to better manage their water resources through the Drought Severity Evaluation Tool (DSET)." DSET is a web-based drought reporting tool that combines Navajo rain gauge data collected by Tribal members, NASA satellite and model data, and drought indices. Tulley provided a demonstration of DSET to show how it could help Navajo members and water managers make decisions based on local drought conditions data.