drought.national.dsci
Retrieve the Drought Severity and Coverage Index (DSCI) for the US from the USDA/NOAA US Drought Monitor. DSCI is a single composite score per week ranging from 0 (no drought anywhere) to 500 (100% of the area in D4 Exceptional Drought), calculated as the weighted sum D0%×1 + D1%×2 + D2%×3 + D3%×...
This record as markdown: /tools/io-github-whiteknightonhorse-apibase/drought.national.dsci.md
What drought.national.dsci does on Apibase
AI agents call drought.national.dsci to retrieve information from Apibase without modifying anything. It is typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
end_date | string | Yes | End date for the query range in YYYY-MM-DD format (e.g. "2024-01-08"). Maximum range is 1 year from start_date. |
start_date | string | Yes | Start date for the query range in YYYY-MM-DD format (e.g. "2024-01-01"). USDM publishes weekly on Tuesdays; dates snap to the nearest release. |
Parameters from the server's own tool schema.
Why drought.national.dsci is rated Low
Tool retrieves historical drought data without side effects or modifications to any systems.
From the tool's definition Retrieve drought severity index data from USDA/NOAA; read-only, no modifications
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
The rule that runs drought.national.dsci safely
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway: it sits between your AI agents and Apibase, and checks every tool call against a rule you set before the call runs. Nothing changes on the server itself. For drought.national.dsci, this is the rule to start with:
drought.national.dsci is read-only, so it stays allowed. Everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
The button opens the PolicyLayer dashboard: create your workspace, connect Apibase, apply this rule, and every drought.national.dsci call is checked against it from then on.
Questions about drought.national.dsci
Retrieve the Drought Severity and Coverage Index (DSCI) for the US from the USDA/NOAA US Drought Monitor. DSCI is a single composite score per week ranging from 0 (no drought anywhere) to 500 (100% of the area in D4 Exceptional Drought), calculated as the weighted sum D0%×1 + D1%×2 + D2%×3 + D3%×4 + D4%×5. Returns DSCI values for both CONUS and the total US (including Alaska/Hawaii/territories) with a descriptive severity classification (none/low/moderate/severe/extreme/exceptional). Useful for tracking drought trends over time, comparing drought years, and integrating a single drought severity metric into dashboards or alerts. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Apibase MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
drought.national.dsci accepts 2 parameters: end_date, start_date. Required: end_date, start_date. The full parameter table on this page comes from the server's own tool schema.
Register the Apibase MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for drought.national.dsci: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Apibase. Nothing to install.
drought.national.dsci is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the drought.national.dsci rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for drought.national.dsci. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
drought.national.dsci is provided by the Apibase MCP server (apibase-mcp-client). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
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