The western United States is experiencing increasingly intense and variable droughts, which disproportionately impact ecosystems and communities. Despite this growing threat, current drought management strategies remain largely reactive, hindered by uncertainties around how novel drought conditions will impact interconnected systems. There is a critical need to incorporate ecological drought information into management discussions to address linkages between drought, water sustainability, and ecosystem dynamics. Therefore, we developed an integrated drought response framework for Southern California, a region that experiences precipitation extremes. This framework incorporates ecologically-relevant data to support drought monitoring, planning, and action. We expanded regionally relevant research and created a structured decision support process to guide adaptation strategies and responses to extreme precipitation variability. We collaborated with a diverse team of partners from federal, state, local, and tribal governments, non-profit organizations, academia, and industry to assess key concerns around drought management. Specifically, we examined critical barriers to drought response and the most commonly used drought tracking products. Our analysis revealed that 55% of our partners were not utilizing federal drought tracking information. Partner concerns regarding drought data access and management fell into four main themes: ecosystem functioning, wildfire risk, hydrologic processes, and human communities. Based on input from our partners, we created participant-informed management scenarios that disseminate ecologically relevant information to support drought planning and response. This project fosters actionable science in a region facing novel precipitation extremes. Southern California is a unique case study, as its hydrologic landscape spans from the mountains to the coast, connecting diverse ecosystems and management challenges. This integrated framework can be used and replicated in other regions with similar ecosystem complexity and management needs.