Drought contingency planning is an increasingly common tool in the ranchers’ climate adaptation toolboxes, but its effect on drought response has not yet been evaluated. We use cognitive models of protective action decision making and planning to explore the effects of having a drought plan on the use of drought early warning information and drought response (and timing). Results of a cross-sectional, probability-based survey of livestock producers affected by a 2016 flash-drought are used to describe the characteristics of operations with drought plans and provide evidence of whether having a plan predicts drought information use and response. While larger operations are more likely than others to have plans for drought, having a drought plan appears to play a unique role in ranchers’ use of information and decision making regardless of operation size. Findings suggest that encouraging the use of drought contingency planning may improve ranchers’ adaptive capacity. Increased use of planning may also increase the effectiveness of communicating risk and early warning information, by making such information more actionable by decision makers.

干旱应急计划已成为牧场主气候适应工具箱中越来越普遍的工具，但尚未评估其对干旱响应的影响。我们使用保护性行动决策和计划的认知模型来探索制定干旱计划对干旱预警信息和干旱响应（及时间）的使用的影响。对受2016年旱灾影响的牲畜生产者进行的基于概率的横断面调查结果，用于描述干旱计划的运营特征，并提供证据表明制定计划是否可以预测干旱信息的使用和响应。尽管大型行动比其他行动更有可能制定干旱计划，制定干旱计划似乎对牧场主的信息使用和决策起着独特的作用，而与经营规模无关。研究结果表明，鼓励使用干旱应急计划可以提高牧场主的适应能力。通过使决策者更容易采取行动，更多地使用计划还可以提高传达风险和预警信息的有效性。