Climate change town hall centers on water, state plans

LINCOLN – More droughts in the Southern plains and floods in the Northern plains are among the scenarios described in new a national climate change draft report.

After record high water flowing from the Colorado Rockies to the Missouri River in 2011, the U.S. experienced a significant decline in water flow in 2012, with nearly 65 percent affected by drought, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln.

“We’ve never seen that sort of a drastic change,” Svoboda said.

Svoboda was one of about 145 people who attended a daylong town hall meeting Monday...