Drought in Numbers Report, 2022

Introduction

• Drought is a prolonged dry period in the natural climate cycle that can occur anywhere in the world. It is a slow-onset disaster characterized by the lack of precipitation, resulting in a water shortage.
• Drought can have a serious impact on health, agriculture, economies, energy and the environment.
• An estimated 55 million people globally are affected by droughts every year, and they are the most serious hazard to livestock and crops in nearly every part of the world.
• Drought threatens people’s livelihoods, increases the risk of disease and death, and fuels mass migration.
• Water scarcity impacts 40% of the world’s population, and as many as 700 million people are at-risk of being displaced as a result of drought by 2030.
• According to World Bank estimates, drought conditions can force up to 216 million people to migrate by 2050. Other factors at play along with drought could be water scarcity, declining crop productivity, rise in sea levels, and overpopulation.

Drought in Numbers Report, 2022

• Drought in Numbers, 2022, released on 12th May, 2022 to mark Drought Day at UNCCD’s 15th Conference of Parties (COP15, 9-20 May in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire) – calls for making a full global commitment to drought preparedness and resilience in all global regions a top priority.
• The Drought in Numbers report is a collection of data on the effects of droughts on our ecosystem and how they can be mitigated through efficient planning for the future.
• The report also helps inform negotiations surrounding key decisions by the UNCCD’s 197 member parties at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15), currently underway in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
• Drought, land restoration, and related aspects such as land rights, gender equality and youth empowerment are among the top considerations at COP15.
• The number and duration of droughts around the world has increased by an alarming 29% since 2000.
• Globally, droughts caused economic losses of roughly $124 billion during that period.
• Though severe affected Africa more than any other continent with over 300 events recorded in the past 100 years, accounting for 44% of the toatl, the highest total number of humans affected by drought were in Asia.
• Between 2020 and 2022, 23 countries have faced drought emergencies. These are Afghanistan, Angola, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritania, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Pakistan, United States, and Zambia.
• According to the report, climate change alone will cause 129 countries to experience an increase in drought exposure in the next few decades.

Droughts in India

• India was identified as one of the most severely drought-affected countries in the assessment. Drought affected nearly two-thirds of the country from 2020 to 2022.
• India is included in the assessment's Global Drought Vulnerability Index. Drought vulnerability in India is comparable to that of Sub-Saharan Africa.
• The report has revealed that many parts of India fall under the list of regions that are vulnerable to drought globally.
• The report also stated that India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reduced by 2 to 5 per cent between 1998 and 2017 due to severe droughts in the country.
• As per sources, India's drought-prone area has increased by 57% since 1997. Over the last decade, one-third of India's districts have experienced more than four droughts, and drought affects 50 million people each year.
• According to the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India, released last year by the Space Applications Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation, 97.85 million hectares — nearly 30% of the country's land — were degraded during 2018-19.

Types of Droughts

While this is a general definition, droughts can be classified into the following categories:

• Meteorological droughts occur when there are long gaps in normal rainfall and are measured based on the degree of dryness and the duration of the dry period.
• Agricultural droughts occur when there is insufficient soil moisture to meet the needs of a crop at a particular time. Agricultural drought usually follows meteorological drought and occurs before a hydrological drought. Agricultural drought can be measured through indicators such as lack of rainfall, changes in evapotranspiration, soil water deficits, reduced groundwater or reservoir levels etc.
• Hydrological droughts are the result of surface and subsurface water supplies from streams, rivers and lakes becoming scarce due to scanty rainfall. The frequency and severity of hydrological droughts are defined at the watershed or river basin scale and are influenced by factors such as land degradation or land use changes, construction of dams etc.
• Socioeconomic droughts occur when water shortage starts to affect people’s lives, individually and collectively.

Causes of Droughts in India

i. Variability of monsoon rainfall

• The variability in rainfall is a major cause of drought. The percentage of variability is inversely related to the total rainfall.
• Areas like northeastern region and the western coastal plains and windward side of the Western Ghats, which receive the highest amount of rainfall in India, have low variability of rainfall. On the other hand, areas of low rainfall have a higher variability of rainfall. This covers the most of the interiors.
• The areas most affected are interior Orissa, western Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Kathiawar and Kachchh in Gujarat, Vidharbha and Marathwada in Maharashtra, northern and eastern Karnataka and western Andhra Pradesh. 

ii. Delay in the onset of monsoon

• Traditional farming and lifestyle patterns place heavy reliance on the timely arrival of monsoon. So even if the monsoon is delayed by a week, it causes a major upset in the farming communities and causes drought and famine.
• These delays however are a fairly common occurrence in areas that get marginal rainfall.
• The areas most affected are Punjab, Haryana, the Indo-Gangetic plains, Bundelkhand, eastern Rajasthan, eastern Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, south Bihar, Jharkhand, interior West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, interior Karnataka and eastern Tamil Nadu.

iii. Breaks in monsoon

• Even within the monsoon if there are long dry periods, that too can cause drought in affected areas.  This may happen due to a reduction in the speed of the rain-laden winds, or a diversion in the route. The damage to crops is usually extensive.
• The areas most affected are the areas in the core monsoon affected areas. 

iv. Areal difference in monsoon

• A deviation in the route of monsoon winds, or an early withdrawal of the monsoon too can have similar repercussions on an area. If the monsoon hangs over east Uttar Pradesh for a longer period of time, then west UP or Haryana are adversely affected.

v. Excess water demands

• Drought can also result because of an imbalance in the supply and demand of water. As the global human population continues to balloon and intensive agricultural practices continue to be employed, more water is required to sustain the human race as well as the agricultural practices.
• This continues to tip the scales, making droughts a reality with each passing day. A study estimated that between 1960 and 2010, the human consumption of water increased the frequency of drought in North America by 25%.
• The situation is worsened by dwindling rainfalls, forcing people to pump more water from rivers, aquifers and reservoirs. Doing this depletes valuable water resources that could take years to replenish and could permanently impact future water availability.
• At the same time, demand for water supplied by upstream lakes and rivers, particularly in the form of irrigation and hydroelectric dams, leads to the diminishing or drying out of downstream water sources, further contributing to droughts in other regions.

vi. Deforestation and soil degradation

• Trees and plants are important as they release moisture to the atmosphere, resulting in clouds forming and rainfall falling, returning the moisture to the ground. Unfortunately, the human race is the best at destroying these natural resources.
• When forests and vegetation disappear, less water is available to feed the water cycle, making entire regions more vulnerable to drought. Meanwhile, deforestation and other poor land-use practices, like intensive farming, continue to diminish soil quality and reduce the land’s ability to absorb and retain water.
• As a result, soil dries out faster, inducing agricultural droughts, and less groundwater is replenished, contributing to hydrological drought.

vii. Global warming

• As the name suggests, the planet is being warmed at alarming rates and could cause droughts. Global warming is mostly associated with human activity such as releasing greenhouse gases which cause a trapping effect, causing global temperatures to rise.
• With increased temperatures, water from rivers, streams, lakes and other bodies of water will continue to evaporate and other practices will result in less of it coming back down as rain. This will therefore result in less rainfall and, of course, droughts.

viii. Climate change

• Rising temperatures have the effect of making wet regions wetter and dry regions drier. For wetter regions, warm air will absorb more water, leading to larger rain events, while in more arid regions, warmer temperatures mean water evaporates more quickly.
• Climate change also alters large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, causing a shift in storm tracks off their typical paths. This, in turn, magnifies weather extremes, which is one reason why climate models predict the already parched U.S. Southwest and the Mediterranean will continue to get drier.

ix. Fluctuating ocean and land temperatures

• Global weather patterns, including dry and wet conditions on land, are mostly determined by ocean temperatures, and even minor changes in temperature can have profound consequences on climate systems.
• According to research, extreme weather patterns on land, such as protracted droughts in North America and the eastern Mediterranean correspond directly to dramatic and prolonged temperature changes in the North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans.

Why is India vulnerable to droughts?

A number of factors make India susceptible to droughts such as:

• Yearly, seasonal and regional variations in rainfall in spite of high average annual rainfall 
• A short span of fewer than 100 days during the south-west monsoon
• Loss of water during heavy rains as surface runoff
• Less rainfall over 33 percent of the cropped area in the country
• Over-exploitation of groundwater resources and poor conservation and storage mechanisms for surface water leading to inadequate water availability in times of scanty rainfall
• Steady decline in per capita water availability for humans and animals even in non-drought years
• Rapid deforestation, urbanisation and climate change that has been leading to erratic rainfall patterns
• Limited irrigation coverage leading to excessive dependence of agriculture on rainfall
• Faulty cropping patterns and over emphasis on water guzzling crops

Areas Vulnerable to droughts in India

• As high as 68 percent of the cropped area in India is vulnerable to droughts of which 33 percent is classified as 'chronically drought-prone' comprising desert and semiarid regions that receive less than 750 mm mean annual rainfall.
• Thirty-five percent area receives 750 mm to 1125 mm rainfall and is classified as 'drought-prone' that is confined to the arid, semi-arid and sub-humid regions of peninsular and western India and include the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Impact of Droughts

1. Hunger and famine

• Droughts result in too little water to support food crops through either natural precipitation or irrigation using reserve water supplies. When drought undermines or destroys food sources, people go hungry and when the drought is severe and continues over a long period, famine occurs.
• The best example is the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, which resulted from a deadly combination of a severe drought and a dangerously ineffective government and led to hundreds of thousands dying.

2. Not enough drinking water

• Droughts will also result in water scarcity and not enough water to drink or use. All living things must have water to survive and when desperate for water to drink, people will turn to untreated sources that can make them sick.
• The lack of clean water will also result in poor public sanitation and personal hygiene and, of course, a wide range of life-threatening diseases. Every year, millions are sickened or die due to a lack of clean water access and sanitation, and droughts will only make the problem worse.
• Water scarcity impacts women and girl children the most. The UNCCD report said in dry lands they “spend as much as 40 per cent of their calorific intake carrying water” every day.

3. Wildfires and an effect on wildlife

• The low moisture and precipitation that often characterize droughts can quickly create hazardous conditions in forests and across rangelands, setting the stage for wildfires that may cause injuries or deaths as well as extensive property damage and already shrinking food supplies.
• With wild animals and plants suffering from droughts, even if they have adapted to dry conditions, they will die or invade human populations in search of water.
• Droughts will then result in increased mortality and reduced reproduction, which is especially problematic for populations of at-risk species whose numbers are already very low.

4. Social conflicts and wars

• When a precious commodity like water is in short supply due to drought, and the lack of water creates a corresponding lack of food, people will compete, and eventually fight and kill, to secure enough water to survive.
• The ongoing Syrian Civil War is believed to have started after millions of rural Syrians fled the drought-stricken rural areas for the cities, triggering unrest.

5. Migration and relocation

• Faced with the other impacts of drought, many people and of course animals will flee a drought-stricken area in search of a new home with a better supply of water, enough food, and without the disease and conflict that were present in the place they are leaving.

6. Blackouts

• Most people in the world continue to rely on hydroelectric projects for their electricity. Drought will reduce the amount of water stored in reservoirs behind dams, reducing the amount of power produced.
• This problem can be very challenging for the many small communities relying on small-scale hydro, where a small electric turbine is installed on a local creek.

7. Economic Effects

• Droughts frequently have a negative financial impact on families, businesses, governments, and individuals. Low yields lead to a significant revenue loss and ultimately result in pay reductions and farm labor layoffs.
• Since farmers lack the funds to buy equipment, businesses and companies that make farm equipment may go out of business. Hydropower plants run at a reduced capacity when the water supply is low, which forces enterprises to pay more for electricity or suffer the expense of utilizing their own generators.
• The impact of severe droughts was estimated to have reduced India's GDP by 2-5 percent over the 20-year period from 1998 to 2017.

How to deal with droughts?

1. Harvesting rainwater

• This is an easy solution to droughts and can be employed with ease at home. With rainwater harvesting, homes can store the water they get from rain and then use it when they need it in dry conditions, rather than exhausting present water bodies like rivers.
• If a house has a primary water source, then rainwater harvesting provides them with an auxiliary option that they can use when water is not available.

2. Planting more trees and combating deforestation

• This is something that needs to be employed by everyone in the world and can result in billions of trees planted daily. It is a piece of old-age advice but still applies today. Planting more trees will improve the quality of the environment and increase the success of precipitation.
• It can also reverse the drought and arid conditions of an area if the trees are maintained well until maturity. With planting more trees, the other solution is to avoid the existing ones, unless more are planted.
• For instance, the Amazon in South America is being destroyed at alarming rates, and scientists have warned that decades of human activity and a changing climate will bring the jungle near a “tipping point.”
• The deforestation coupled with forest fires and global temperature rises will soon result in the water cycle being irreversibly broken and locking in a trend of declining rainfall and longer dry seasons that began decades ago.

3. Switching to renewable energies

• We have, for long, relied on non-renewable sources for our energy, like petroleum. The extraction and use of these energies results in more greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere, resulting in global warming and, of course, droughts.
• The alternative is to switch to renewable sources like wind and solar, which have little to no effect on the environment and will not result in droughts.

4. Solar pumps 

• Water is most commonly pumped out of the earth to irrigate crops or supply livestock with water. Pumps do, however, use electricity, which uses more fossil fuels overall.
• Because they don’t consume electricity from the mains to pump water for irrigation, solar pumps are becoming more and more common.
• The advantages of solar pumps are being recognized by governments worldwide, and some have even provided subsidies to farmers so they may install them affordably.

5. Stricter government policies

• These can be used at the local, national, regional and international levels. Stringent laws need to be implemented on those who use practices that can cause droughts or other environmentally damaging results.
• Doing this will stop climate change and solve the ongoing droughts. They include limiting the amounts of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere and higher taxes for non-compliance.

6. Becoming environmentally conscious

• This includes educating the younger generation on the need to protect, preserve and improve the environment, recycling, reusing and planting more trees.
• The education curriculum, the news media and companies also need to stress the need to care for the environment, so that it becomes an individual task to prevent droughts.

Drought management, however, continues to be inadequately addressed in the country, not due to lack of policies and institutional framework, but due to lack of proper planning, coordination between different functioning units and implementation at the ground level. 

While scanty rainfall, depleting water tables continue to fuel the agricultural crisis in the country, it is clear that we need to be better prepared to mitigate the impacts of a drought. Concerted action at the policy level by giving agriculture the importance it deserves and urgent adaptation strategies to cope with the situation need to be implemented urgently.