Current Impacts
To see or report current drought impacts, please visit the Drought Impacts Toolkit, where you can find impacts from media in the Drought Impact Reporter and from citizen scientists and other volunteer observers under Condition Monitoring Observations.
Historic Impacts
No two states have the same experience during a drought. Below are examples of some of the impacts experienced in Florida in the past. The process for developing this example impact table is described in Noel, M., Bathke, D., Fuchs, B., Gutzmer, D., Haigh, T., Hayes, M., Poděbradská, M., Shield, C., Smith, K. and Svoboda, M., 2020. Linking drought impacts to drought severity at the state level. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 101(8), pp.E1312-E1321. doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0067.1. To view a more complete record, and to filter impacts by drought severity, sector and season, check out the interactive State Impacts Tool.
| Category | Examples of historically observed impacts |
|---|
| D0 | Increased landscape irrigation is needed; voluntary water conservation is requested |
| Small brush fires increase |
| D1 | Burn bans are possible |
| Trees and bushes begin browning |
| Water supply decreases |
| D2 | Air and water quality are poor; water salinity is high; river and lake levels are low |
| Bears and snakes change food and water habitats |
| Large increase of wildfire abundance; fire danger is elevated; burn bans are implemented |
| Lawns and landscapes go dormant |
| Pasture is drying, hay yields are low |
| D3 | Fire danger is extreme; fire restrictions increase |
| Fish kills occur; toxic algae blooms appear |
| Ground water declines; Lake Okeechobee is extremely low |
| Nesting bird populations grow with increased nesting area; mosquitoes increase |
| Saltwater species replace freshwater species; sea intrusion |
| D4 | Ground water declines rapidly |
| Large municipalities use alternative water sources, borrow water |