![Photo: Lake Mead Drought - AP](https://www.cpr.org/cdn-cgi/image/width=3840,quality=75,format=auto/https://wp-cpr.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/06/ap_18107737960683-1.jpg)
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.