Historical and future ecological drought conditions for rangelands of the western U.S.

These NetCDF data were compiled to investigate how rangelands in the western U.S. are limited by access to water. As a result, these ecosystems may be especially vulnerable to changes in water availability and drought as a result of climate change. This project utilized an ecosystem water balance model to quantify spatial and temporal patterns of rangeland ecological drought conditions under historical and future climate conditions. Water balance results were used to estimate several metrics that describe the seasonal timing and amount of moisture available for plant utilization in western rangelands. These data represent different aspects of water availability and drought. They are based on 1/16-degree gridded simulations using the [...]