And, as you look for ways to cope with dry patches, be sure to factor in a doubling of the population and the likely impacts of climate change.

That's the message behind a landmark report released Tuesday by state water planners, who took an in-depth look backward and forward in sizing up a natural disaster that Utah should count on grappling with again and again.

Todd Stonely, a state water planner who helped develop the report, said he was most struck by the fact that droughts in modern times have not been quite as severe as they were in the previous 2,000 years. An eye-opener for him: The average drought in the 110 years that climate has been measured in the state was 6.8 years, compared with an average of 10.9 years for droughts seen in tree-ring records from the past 20 centuries.

While water managers have developed a collection of strategies to cope with droughts, he said, two factors would make future decade-long droughts more harsh than those of earlier times: population growth and climate change.

"If we went through something like that now, we would go through some pretty significant trials," he said.

The report comes as Utah grapples with a shockingly poor water year, with snowpack at the end of March as low as 2 percent of normal in the southeastern part of the state and no major drainage in Utah with more than half of its normal snowpack.

At more than 100 pages, "Drought In Utah: Learning from the Past-Preparing for the Future," is rich with interesting observations about water trends. Geared primarily toward water providers, such as conservancy districts, it offers relatively few solutions - just three pages of suggestions.

The main conclusion: Water managers need to have solid, multi-faceted plans to provide water for both culinary and agriculture use - which takes up about 81 percent of the state's water supplies - during the long, dry times ahead.

Brian McInerney, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service's Salt Lake City Office, says the report raises many questions about Utah's water.

"Our population is growing and we have finite resources," he said. "How do we deal with that? How are we going to adapt? There are a lot of unknowns."

One is, with signs that global warming is accelerating, and with predictions that temperatures will increase between 4 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit in North America by the end of the century, it's unclear what that means for snowpack in the West. Climate models are not clear now on whether the West can expect less water or more.

More water would make managing Utah's supply easier during drought periods. But there is no guarantee that's the scenario to expect, McInerney noted.

"The big constant is conservation," he said. "We need to conserve the water we have."

Stephanie Duer, water conservation coordinator for Salt Lake City, pointed out that water managers have been dealing with drought forever in Utah. It's important for each community not only to plan but also to adopt strategies that will work for their individual circumstances, such as how they get their water, how they store it.

"Every community needs to address its water supply, its finite nature and its variability," she said, noting that Salt Lake City studied more than 30 model drought plans before developing its own.

Tage I. Flint, general manager of the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, agreed that many strategies have and should be explored to cope with drought. He predicts periodic updates of the state's drought report.

"What we think we will have to address in reports of the future is how much growth we've had in the upper valleys," he said.

fahys@sltrib.com