As Colorado And The West Dry Out At Record Rates, We Need A New Word For Drought

AP

researcher Douglas Kenney thinks. Kenney directs the school's Western Water Policy Program, which recently released a paper called "When is Drought, Not a Drought: Drought, Aridification, and the "New Normal."

Kenney talked to Colorado Matters about why he and his peers believe that aridification is the more appropriate word. Aridification describes a period of transition where an environment becomes increasingly and permanently water scarce -- a new reality for the Western U.S.