Drought management and decison-making

Chapter 4. Droughts are high impact natural disasters that affect populations around the world, and there is evidence of droughts becoming more severe. India is already a drought vulnerable country. With nearly half of the population employed in agriculture, drought events can have devastating impacts on society. A range of approaches to characterise, monitor and predict droughts to enhance resilience to the hazard are required. As in other regions, drought indicators have a vital role to play in enabling drought to be identified and declared, and the severity of drought conditions to be quantified. A cornerstone of drought mitigation in India is the ‘Manual for Drought Management 2016’, a framework which outlines the process by which welfare assistance is initiated according to a combination of drought indicators, severity level, and declarations. The Manual provides considerable flexibility for how the indicators should be applied in practice to support drought declaration. In this chapter, the current status of drought indicators, globally, is outlined, and the importance of having robust and validated drought indicators to enhance drought decision-making is demonstrated using a case study in Maharashtra.