Note: This version of the Drought Impact Reporter is being phased out. Please update your bookmarks to go.unl.edu/dirdash.

National Drought Mitigation Center
NDMC Drought Impact Reporter - Hawaii

Drought Impact Reporter Help - Mapping

Using the Map

The default view of the map at http://hawaii.droughtreporter.unl.edu shows all impacts recorded in the past 30 days for Hawaii for all categories and all report types. Summary statistics appear below the map on the Impact Counts and Report Counts tabs. Use the Impacts List and Reports List tabs to see narrative and other details.

Hawaii Default view.

Map Controls

Use the compass arrows in the top left corner of the map to move the map view north, south, east or west.

Use the plus sign to zoom in, the minus sign to zoom out, and the world icon to go to the most remote view.

Click on Map in the navigation bar to get back to the default view.

Main navigation bar.

If you click on a state, a popup box appears with summary statistics for that state.

Note: Clicking on the All-States View will take users to the U.S. Drought Impact Reporter.

Click on a state to get summary statistics.

Use the Impacts List button to view details in a separate window. When a county view is selected, county-level impacts appear first, from most recent to older, followed by statewide impacts.

List of impacts.

Using the Legend

The legend allows you to turn the impacts and reports layers on and off, and to refine your search by time, place, impact category, and report types. The Overlays tab displays other useful boundaries.

Use the triangles to the left of the legend headings to open and close each part of the legend.

Layers that are turned on and off with checkboxes refresh immediately. The options that let you select a time period, state or county, one or more categories and one or more report types aren’t applied until you click the Refresh button at the top of the legend.

Use the opacity slider to make layers more transparent or more opaque.

Caution: Some options don’t work well together. For example, mapping reports by affected area covers up the impacts.

Use the opacity slider to make layers more transparent or more opaque.

Use the triangles to the left of the legend headings to open and close each part of the legend.

Impacts and Reports each have their own layer on the Drought Impact Reporter map. You can turn the layers on and off by using the checkboxes.

The DIR legend.

Scales

Use the Scale selection panel to toggle between scales.

National impacts are generally indirect economic effects of drought and affect all 50 states.

Multistate impacts apply to 2-49 states.

State impacts affect a single state.

County impacts describe drought’s effects on a specific county or group of counties.

City impacts describe drought’s effects on a municipality.

Impacts may have more than one affected area, so a single impact may show up at more than one scale.

Reports and impact layers are turned on.

Time Period

The default time window is the last 30 days. Open the time window selector on the legend to choose a different interval. After you choose a new interval of time, click the Refresh button at the top of the legend to apply your choice.

Select a Time Period

Choosing Custom brings up windows for start and end dates and a calendar to select dates. The search will return information on any impact that occurs at least partially within the specified window. For reports, if no specific start or end date is given, the search uses the publication date instead.

If you customize the date, choose the year first.

To select a date in the distant past, select the earliest year visible on the dropdown list. Repeat until you are able to select the desired year. Each time you select a year, that year becomes the midpoint of the dropdown list.

Be sure to click on a specific date.

Customize your selection.
Select a date.

Location

Open the Location selector on the legend to choose a state. Click refresh in order to apply your choice and zoom to the state.

The display below the map will change to show counts and details for impacts and reports for that state. Clicking on a county brings up details for that county in a popup box, along with buttons that bring up impact details or return you to the original view.

Select a location.

Categories

We categorize drought impacts and reports based on what sectors are involved. A report or an impact can have more than one category. The Category bar on the legend allows users to narrow their search to one or more categories. The colored icons below the map change to reflect which categories were included in the search.

Agriculture

Drought effects associated with agriculture, farming, aquaculture, horticulture, forestry or ranching. Examples of drought-induced agricultural impacts include damage to crop quality; income loss for farmers due to reduced crop yields; reduced productivity of cropland; insect infestation; plant disease; increased irrigation costs; cost of new or supplemental water resource development (wells, dams, pipelines) for agriculture; reduced productivity of rangeland; forced reduction of foundation stock; closure/limitation of public lands to grazing; high cost or unavailability of water for livestock, Christmas tree farms, forestry, raising domesticated horses, bees, fish, shellfish, or horticulture.

Business & Industry

This category tracks drought's effects on non-agriculture and non-tourism businesses, such as lawn care, recreational vehicles or gear dealers, and plant nurseries. Typical impacts include reduction or loss of demand for goods or services, reduction in employment, variation in number of calls for service, late opening or early closure for the season, bankruptcy, permanent store closure, and other economic impacts.

Energy

This category concerns drought's effects on power production, rates and revenue. Examples include production changes for both hydropower and non-hydropower providers, changes in electricity rates, revenue shortfalls and/or windfall profits, and purchase of electricity when hydropower generation is down.

Fire

Drought often contributes to forest, range, rural, or urban fires, fire danger, and burning restrictions. Specific impacts include enacting or easing burning restrictions, fireworks bans, increased fire risk, occurrence of fire (number of acres burned, number of wildfires compared to average, people displaced, etc.), state of emergency during periods of high fire danger, closure of roads or land due to fire occurrence or risk, and expenses to state and county governments of paying firefighters overtime and paying equipment (helicopter) costs.

Plants & Wildlife

Drought effects associated with unmanaged plants and wildlife, both aquatic and terrestrial, include loss of biodiversity of plants or wildlife; loss of trees from rural or urban landscapes, shelterbelts, or wooded conservation areas; reduction and degradation of fish and wildlife habitat; lack of feed and drinking water; greater mortality due to increased contact with agricultural producers, as animals seek food from farms and producers are less tolerant of the intrusion; disease; increased vulnerability to predation (from species concentrated near water); migration and concentration (loss of wildlife in some areas and too much wildlife in others); increased stress on endangered species; salinity levels affecting wildlife; wildlife encroaching into urban areas; and loss of wetlands.

Relief, Response & Restrictions

This category refers to drought effects associated with disaster declarations, aid programs, requests for disaster declaration or aid, water restrictions, or fire restrictions. Examples include disaster declarations, aid programs, USDA Secretarial disaster declarations, Small Business Association disaster declarations, government relief and response programs, state-level water shortage or water emergency declarations, county-level declarations, a declared "state of emergency," requests for declarations or aid, non-profit organization-based relief, water restrictions, fire restrictions, National Weather Service Red Flag warnings, and declaration of drought watches or warnings.

Society & Public Health

Drought effects associated with human, public and social health include health-related problems related to reduced water quantity and/or quality, such as increased concentration of contaminants; loss of human life (e.g., from heat stress, suicide); increased respiratory ailments; increased disease caused by wildlife concentrations; increased human disease caused by changes in insect carrier populations; population migration (rural to urban areas, migrants into the United States); loss of aesthetic values; change in daily activities (non-recreational, like putting a bucket in the shower to catch water); elevated stress levels; meetings to discuss drought; communities creating drought plans; lawmakers altering penalties for violation of water restrictions; demand for higher water rates; cultural/historical discoveries from low water levels; prayer meetings; cancellation of fundraising events; cancellation/alteration of festivals or holiday traditions; stockpiling water; public service announcements and drought information websites; protests; and conflicts within the community due to competition for water.

Tourism & Recreation

Drought effects associated with recreational activities and tourism include closure of state hiking trails and hunting areas due to fire danger; water access or navigation problems for recreation; bans on recreational activities; reduced license, permit, or ticket sales (e.g. hunting, fishing, ski lifts, etc.); losses related to curtailed activities (e.g. bird watching, hunting and fishing, boating, etc.); reduced park visitation; and cancellation or postponement of sporting events.

Water Supply & Quality

Drought effects associated with water supply and water quality include dry wells, voluntary and mandatory water restrictions, changes in water rates, easing of water restrictions, increases in requests for new well permits, changes in water use due to water restrictions, greater water demand, decreases in water allocation or allotments, installation or alteration of water pumps or water intakes, changes to allowable water contaminants, water line damage or repairs due to drought stress, drinking water turbidity, change in water color or odor, declaration of drought watches or warnings, and mitigation activities.

Fruits & Nuts (orchard)

Drought effects related to orchard-grown fruits and nuts include the need for increased irrigation; tree mortality; and reduced production of tree-grown fruits and nuts such as coffee, papayas, coconuts, citrus, mangoes, macadamia nuts, avocados, bananas, rambutan, loquat, lychee and jaboticaba.

Ornamentals

Drought effects related to ornamentals include the need for increased irrigation; reduced revenue for flower and nursery crops; and reduced production of flowers such as anthurium, orchids, ginger, pikake, pakalana, tuberose, protea and maile.

Other Agriculture

Examples of drought-induced agricultural impacts include reduced planting of sugar cane and corn; damage to crop quality; income loss for farmers due to reduced crop yields; reduced productivity of cropland; insect infestation; losses due to deer or other wildlife damaging fencing or irrigation systems or eating forage; plant disease; increased irrigation costs; cost of new or supplemental water resource development (wells, dams, pipelines) for agriculture; forestry, raising domesticated horses, bees, fish, shellfish, or horticulture; and increased corrosion of fencing due to lack of precipitation to rinse off salt and vog deposits.

Produce (fruits and vegetables)

Drought effects related to produce, i.e., fruits and vegetables, include increased irrigation, and reduced yield on crops such as taro, pineapple, cabbage, lettuce and broccoli.

Ranching

Drought effects related to ranching or dairy include reduced productivity of rangeland; supplemental feeding; forced reduction of foundation stock; closure/limitation of public lands to grazing; early weaning and lowered weaning weights of calves; high cost or unavailability of water for livestock; and the cost of hauling water for livestock.

General Awareness

General Awareness applies only to media reports and usually indicates that people are concerned about drought but no specific impact has occurred yet or the information is too general to use for an impact.

Additional Descriptors

The state icon means that the affected area of an impact or a report is statewide and is mapped to all the counties in a particular state.

The “thumbs up” icon means that a report or impact has been identified as a positive result of drought, such as fewer construction delays due to rain. The Advanced Search page allows users to restrict searches to positive impacts. Positive impacts are rare. As of September 2011, only 36 out of more than 13,000 impacts were positive.

Overlays

Access visual overlays by using the overlays tab on the legend. Put a checkmark in the box to make a layer visible, and expand the bar to get to the opacity control. When one of the Overlays is checked, you won’t be able to click on a state or county for more detail as you normally would.

U.S. Drought Monitor

The default selection for the Drought Monitor overlay is the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor. Click in the date window to select a different week’s Drought Monitor, and click the refresh icon to the right of the date window to update it.

U.S. Drought Monitor