- 中文 (Chinese)
- Deutsch (German)
- Español (Spanish)
- Français (French)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Brasil (Portuguese)
- Philippines
- हिंदी (Hindi)
Mongabay Series: Connected Environments , Flood and drought
Southern India’s 2016-2018 drought was the worst in 150 years
- A severe drought that hit southern India during 2016-2018 was the worst to hit the region over the past 150 years and was associated with a deficit in the northeastern monsoon.
- Drought conditions linked to northeastern monsoonal rainfall across southern India are associated with cool phases of the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean. Cool phases of the Pacific Ocean are known as La Niña.
- If severe droughts in southern India are linked to La Niña, they could potentially be predicted, said an independent expert.
Southern India was hit by severe drought from 2016 to 2018 arising from low rainfall during the northeast monsoon, which occurs during the winter. So severe was the impact that a water crisis erupted in Chennai, India’s sixth-largest city of 11 million inhabitants, as four of the city’s major reservoirs went bone-dry and groundwater levels plummeted. In the summer of 2019, a “Day Zero” was declared and residents scrambled to obtain water from tankers.
Now, after examining rainfall data over the past 150 years, researchers in India and the US conclude that the 2016-2018 northeast monsoon drought was unprecedented with more than 40 percent deficit in northeast monsoonal rainfall during the three years.
The recent drought was worse than the Great Drought of 1874-1876 that led to crop failure, which in turn resulted in the Great Madras Famine of 1876 to 1878 that claimed millions of lives. The team demonstrates that cool phases in the equatorial Indian and Pacific Oceans are associated with the rainfall deficit.
“The consecutive failure of the northeast monsoon can result in a water crisis in Southern India,” lead author Vimal Mishra, associate professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, told Mongabay-India, adding that “it has considerable implications to agricultural productivity.”
While India receives most of its annual rainfall during the Indian summer monsoon (June to September), southern India receives about 40 percent of its rainfall from October to December in what is known as the northeastern monsoon (NEM) or the winter monsoon. It is crucial for drinking water and agriculture contributing to the livelihood of millions.
The southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu continuously declared drought from 2016 to 2018 linked to low northeast monsoonal rainfall. Over 60 percent of the rural population in southern India is engaged in agriculture and relies on rainfall from the winter monsoon.
Failure of the northeast monsoon
How severe was the recent drought compared to those Southern India has experienced in the past? What are the causes of the deficit in the northeast monsoon? Mishra’s team sought to answer these questions.
To investigate the long-term history of NEM droughts in the region, the team used rainfall observations from the India Meteorology Department from 1870 to 2018. Data on total water storage was obtained from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites for April 2002 to June 2017 while the GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission provided data for 2018 onwards.
Over the past 150 years, there were five main periods of drought with more than 29 percent deficit in rainfall (1876, 2016, 1938, 1988, and 1974 in order of severity). Looking at single year rainfalls, 1876 was the driest year with a precipitation deficit of 69 percent followed by 2016 with a deficit of 63 percent. But when considering cumulative rainfall over three years, 2016 to 2018 was the worst NEM drought with a precipitation deficit of 45 percent while the 1874 to 1876 drought, or the Great Drought as it is known, was the second-worst with a deficit of 37 percent.
The GRACE satellite indicated that total water loss in Southern India in December 2016 was 79 cubic kilometres (km3) while the GRACE-FO data showed that the loss was 46.5 km3 in June 2017 and 41.7 km3 in June 2019. Loss in total water storage likely resulted in significant depletion of groundwater in the region, say the authors.
What factors were associated with deficits in the northeast monsoon?
The team examined sea surface temperatures (SST), sea-level pressure and wind fields during the winter monsoon to understand how circulation patterns affect variability in northeast monsoonal rainfall. Sea surface temperature over the equatorial Indian and Pacific Oceans affects year-to-year variability of the northeast monsoon, explained Mishra. “SST anomalies cooler than normal are linked to a weak northeast monsoon.”
In 2016 and 2017, cool SST anomalies prevailed in the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean and were associated with La Niña in the central Pacific, the researchers observed. La Niña is a climate pattern that occurs irregularly every two to seven years. During La Niña, the surface waters over the equatorial Pacific Ocean are cool and this affects global weather patterns.
At the same time, the researchers noted anomalous cooling was seen in the Indian Ocean. Such patterns along with those seen in sea-level pressure and surface-air temperatures gave rise to anomalous westerlies in the equatorial Indian Ocean, which weakened moisture transport from the Bay of Bengal during the northeast monsoon, explained the authors.
Interestingly, the study revealed that out of five of the major droughts that struck southern India over the past 150 years, four occurred during La Niña.
Deepti Singh, assistant professor at Washington State University, who was not connected with the study, notes that the paper “links the recent severe, multi-year drought primarily to La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean in 2016-2017 and 2017-18.”
This finding “implies that there is potential to predict them a few months in advance since La Niña events can be predicted with some skill in the summer,” said Singh, adding that “this means that stakeholders can prepare for and mitigate their impacts.”
While the study does not explain what made the 2016-2018 drought one of the strongest on record, “it demonstrates that natural climate variability can lead to extreme events.” She stresses that a better understanding of these drivers can inform our ability to predict severe droughts in the future. “Timely predictions of such events can help better manage and potentially reduce their societal impacts,” Singh says.
“This is particularly important since extreme La Niña conditions are projected to become more frequent with warming and if this link holds, it might mean increasing drought risks to the region, which will likely be worsened by hotter conditions. ”
Mishra, V., Thirumalai, K., Jain, S., & Aadhar, S. (2021). Unprecedented drought in South India and recent water scarcity. Environmental Research Letters , 16 (5), 054007.
Banner image: Climate change can increase the frequency of drought conditions in India. Photo by Christopher Michel/Flickr.
Special series
Wetland champions.
- [Commentary] India establishes the largest network of Ramsar Sites in South Asia
- [Commentary] Wetland champions: Promise from the grassroots
- The story of Jakkur lake sets an example for inclusive rejuvenation projects
- Welcome to Tsomgo lake: Please don’t litter
Environment And Health
- Brahmapuram fumes over waste
- Transgender activists highlight the impacts of climate change and environmental issues on the community
- Stubble burning is back, smothering north India with concerns for the upcoming winter
- Humans are contaminating Earth’s waterways with medicines, pharmaceutical ingredients
Almost Famous Species
- India garners international support to save two endangered freshwater turtles
- What protecting the slender loris could mean for forest communities in Tamil Nadu
- [Video] Hangul, the shy Kashmiri deer, is facing the threat of extinction as its habitat shrinks
- Identifying individual mugger crocodiles using drone technology to minimise conflicts
- India budgets for mangroves and wetlands
- Working with biomaterials to add to the sustainable energy mix
- Hosur forest division runs campaign to collect illegal guns in a move to protect elephants
- How an equitable model of irrigation is changing this drought-prone Maharashtra region
India's Iconic Landscapes
- Ain’t no mountain high enough: alien invasive plants increasing in higher elevations
- Unplanned, faulty buildings tremble under weather events in the fragile Himalayan regions
- Nourishing soils of Kashmir’s karewas crumble under infrastructure
- Shielding hijol, a floodplain tree, from climate impacts
Beyond Protected Areas
- Climate change and catfight in the Himalayas: tigers, leopards venture into snow leopard land
- Mapping connectivity and human-elephant conflict in Karnataka
- Despite efforts and funds, human-wildlife conflict in Uttarakhand is not contained
- Farmers in Kaziranga demand timely, sufficient compensation for the crop raids by wildlife
Conserving Agro-biodiversity
- [Explainer] Why is 2023 the International Year of Millets? What do we achieve by celebrating such years?
- Nations adopt Global Biodiversity Framework amid concerns over watered-down targets
- [Commentary] A renewed CGIAR can better support South Asia to determine its food future
- Equitable benefit sharing of digitised genetic information to span across discussions at COP15
Just Transitions
- Incentives to boost demand, increase in e-buses in Tamil Nadu’s latest EV policy
- Electricity transition in India’s renewable-rich states needs to accelerate, says study
- [Interview] Ajay Kumar Rastogi on leading India’s first just transition task force
- Helping wildlife navigate road and railway infrastructure
Subscribe To Our Weekly Newsletter
Get fact-checked science and environment news from India in your inbox every Saturday!
You have Successfully Subscribed!
Climate Change
Repeated multi-year droughts hit india over last 1,000 years, water policies need reassessment: study.
Southwest monsoon could switch into a drought-prone mode, lasting decades in the future
By Rohini Krishnamurthy
Published: monday 26 september 2022.
India witnessed repeated multi-year droughts over the last thousand years, predominately before 1871, a new study has predicted.
This contrasts with the drought history of the post-1871 era. The country saw only one instance of a three-year-long drought during this period, from 1985-1987, the study published September 19, 2022, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science highlighted .
Subcontinent-wide severe droughts, too, have become rare, with only five such instances over the last 150 years.
The southwest monsoon could switch into a drought-prone mode, lasting decades in the future, the authors of the study warned.
India’s current water resources, sustainability and mitigation policies do not consider the possibility of multi-year droughts in the future. The researchers make a case for reassessing policies.
Gayatri Kathayat and her colleagues arrived at these findings by reconstructing monsoon records.
“We have 150 years of instrumental data. But we did not know what monsoons looked like in the past. Everything was like a black hole,” Kathayat, an author of the study, told Down To Earth.
This quest took them to Mawmluh cave, Cherrapunji, one of the wettest regions in the world.
The researchers studied geological formations called stalagmites, mineral deposits formed by flowing, dripping, or seeping water to make the reconstruction possible.
These long cylindrical structures act as record-keepers of past climates. The researchers estimated the value of delta O-18 from these structures.
Delta O-18 measures the ratio of stable isotopes or variants of oxygen. A positive delta O-18 value signals drier conditions, while a negative one indicates wetter conditions, Kathayat explained.
They compared their data with documented drought records, famines, mass mortality events and geopolitical changes in the Indian subcontinent.
Droughts are the reasons behind most famines in India before the British period, between the 1500s and 1770s, the study noted.
Their data agreed with documented records of severe droughts in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Deindustrialisation occurred in India by mid 19th centuary as the country lost most of its export market, the report found.
This supports the theory that a “drastic slump in agricultural productivity and the fragmentation of the Mughal Empire sowed the seeds of India’s deindustrialisation,” the researchers wrote.
Climate, possibly, led to India’s deindustrialisation, they added.
Only roughly 20 per cent and 50 per cent of the historic droughts appear to have co-occurred with the El Nino event. El Nino is a climate pattern describing the unusual surface water warming in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Peaks in El Nino activity in the 1640s and 1800s corresponded with increased historical drought frequency, the study showed.
This is consistent with patterns post-1871. Less than 50 per cent of the southwest monsoon droughts have co-occurred with the El Nino events, the researchers pointed out.
This suggests other factors could have also been involved.
The researchers hope to gain more insights into the drivers of multi-year droughts. “We know when it happened and where it happened. But we don’t know why it happened,” Kathayat added.
.png "recent case study of drought in india")
We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together.
Comments are moderated and will be published only after the site moderator’s approval. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name. Selected comments may also be used in the ‘Letters’ section of the Down To Earth print edition.
We apologize for the inconvenience...
To ensure we keep this website safe, please can you confirm you are a human by ticking the box below.
If you are unable to complete the above request please contact us using the below link, providing a screenshot of your experience.
https://ioppublishing.org/contacts/
Please solve this CAPTCHA to request unblock to the website
Information
- Author Services
Initiatives
You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.
All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .
Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.
Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.
Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.
- Active Journals
- Find a Journal
- Proceedings Series
- For Authors
- For Reviewers
- For Editors
- For Librarians
- For Publishers
- For Societies
- For Conference Organizers
- Open Access Policy
- Institutional Open Access Program
- Special Issues Guidelines
- Editorial Process
- Research and Publication Ethics
- Article Processing Charges
- Testimonials
- Preprints.org
- SciProfiles
- Encyclopedia
Article Menu
- Subscribe SciFeed
- Recommended Articles
- Google Scholar
- on Google Scholar
- Table of Contents
Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.
Please let us know what you think of our products and services.
Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.
JSmol Viewer
Rainfall forecast and drought analysis for recent and forthcoming years in india.
1. Introduction
2. materials and methods, 2.1. descriptive statistics on rainfall and drought in india, 2.1.1. analysis of rainfall, 2.1.2. analysis of drought, 2.2. rainfall forecast using lstm, 3. results and discussion, rainfall forecast and drought analysis in future, 4. conclusions, author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.
- Graham, S. Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission. Earth Observatory ; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: Greenbelt, MD, USA, 1999.
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Available online: http://www.fao.org/india/fao-in-india/india-at-a-glance/en/#:~:text=Agriculture%2C%20with%20its%20allied%20sectors,275%20million%20tonnes%20(MT) (accessed on 5 June 2021).
- Ahmed, I.A.; Salam, R.; Naikoo, M.W.; Rahman, A.; Praveen, B.; Hoai, P.N.; Pham, Q.B.; Anh, D.T.; Tri, D.Q.; Elkhrachy, I. Evaluating the variability in long-term rainfall over India with advanced statistical techniques. Acta Geophys. 2022 , 70 , 801–818. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Meshram, S.G.; Gautam, R.; Kahya, E. Drought analysis in the Tons River Basin, India during 1969–2008. Theor. Appl. Climatol. 2018 , 132 , 939–951. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Carrao, H.; Russo, S.; Sepulcre-Canto, G.; Barbosa, P. An empirical standardized soil moisture index for agricultural drought assessment from remotely sensed data. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf. 2016 , 48 , 74–84. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Yihdego, Y.; Vaheddoost, B.; Al-Weshah, R.A. Drought indices and indicators revisited. Arab. J. Geosci. 2019 , 12 , 69. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Xu, Y.; Wang, L.; Ross, K.W.; Liu, C.; Berry, K. Standardized Soil Moisture Index for Drought Monitoring Based on Soil Moisture Active Passive Observations and 36 Years of North American Land Data Assimilation System Data: A Case Study in the Southeast United States. Remote Sens. 2018 , 10 , 301. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
- Pathak, A.A.; Channaveerappa; Dodamani, B. Comparison of two hydrological drought indices. Perspect. Sci. 2016 , 8 , 626–628. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Keyantash, J.; Dracup, J.A. The Quantification of Drought: An Evaluation of Drought Indices. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 2002 , 83 , 1167–1180. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Singh, P.; Pandey, P.C.; Petropoulos, G.P.; Pavlides, A.; Srivastava, P.K.; Koutsias, N.; Deng, K.A.K.; Bao, Y. 8-Hyperspectral remote sensing in precision agriculture: Present status, challenges, and future trends. In Earth Observation, Hyperspectral Remote Sensing ; Pandey, P.C., Prashant, K., Srivastava, P.K., Balzter, H., Bhattacharya, B., Petropoulos, G.P., Eds.; Elsevier: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2020; pp. 121–146. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Hao, Z.; Singh, V.P.; Xia, Y. Seasonal drought prediction: Advances, challenges, and future prospects. Rev. Geophys. 2018 , 56 , 108–141. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Ridwan, W.M.; Sapitang, M.; Aziz, A.; Kushiar, K.F.; Ahmed, A.N.; El-Shafie, A. Rainfall forecasting model using machine learning methods: Case study Terengganu, Malaysia. Ain Shams Eng. J. 2020 , 12 , 1651–1663. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Kashiwao, T.; Nakayama, K.; Ando, S.; Ikeda, K.; Lee, M.; Bahadori, A. A neural network-based local rainfall prediction system using meteorological data on the Internet: A case study using data from the Japan Meteorological Agency. Appl. Soft Comput. 2017 , 56 , 317–330. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Praveen, B.; Talukdar, S.; Shahfahad; Mahato, S.; Mondal, J.; Sharma, P.; Islam, A.R.M.T.; Rahman, A. Analyzing trend and forecasting of rainfall changes in India using non-parametrical and machine learning approaches. Sci. Rep. 2020 , 10 , 10342. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
- Peña, M.; Vázquez-Patiño, A.; Zhiña, D.; Montenegro, M.; Avilés, A. Improved Rainfall Prediction through Nonlinear Autoregressive Network with Exogenous Variables: A Case Study in Andes High Mountain Region. Adv. Meteorol. 2020 , 2020 , 1828319. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Azimi, S.; Moghaddam, M.A. Modeling Short Term Rainfall Forecast Using Neural Networks, and Gaussian Process Classification Based on the SPI Drought Index. Water Resour. Manag. 2020 , 34 , 1369–1405. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Danladi, A.; Stephen, M.; Aliyu, B.; Gaya, G.; Silikwa, N.; Machael, Y. Assessing the influence of weather parameters on rainfall to forecast river discharge based on short-term. Alex. Eng. J. 2018 , 57 , 1157–1162. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Yen, M.-H.; Liu, D.-W.; Hsin, Y.-C.; Lin, C.-E.; Chen, C.-C. Application of the deep learning for the prediction of rainfall in Southern Taiwan. Sci. Rep. 2019 , 9 , 12774. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Poornima, S.; Pushpalatha, M. Prediction of Rainfall Using Intensified LSTM Based Recurrent Neural Network with Weighted Linear Units. Atmosphere 2019 , 10 , 668. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Gers, F.A.; Schmidhuber, J.; Cummins, F. Learning to Forget: Continual Prediction with LSTM. Neural Comput. 2000 , 12 , 2451–2471. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Drought Early Warning System. Available online: https://sites.google.com/a/iitgn.ac.in/high_resolution_south_asia_drought_monitor/drought-early-warning-system (accessed on 31 June 2019).
- Attri, S.D.; Chug, S.S. Annual Report 2020 ; Indian Meteorological Department: Pune, India. Available online: https://metnet.imd.gov.in/imdnews/ar2020.pdf (accessed on 22 February 2021).
- Lepenioti, K.; Bousdekis, A.; Apostolou, D.; Mentzas, G. Prescriptive analytics: Literature review and research challenges. Int. J. Inf. Manag. 2020 , 50 , 57–70. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Cheval, S. The Standardized Precipitation Index—An overview. Rom. J. Meteorol. 2015 , 12 , 17–64. [ Google Scholar ]
- Poornima, S. Prediction of Rainfall Using Intensified LSTM and Rule Based Crop Recommendation over Drought Period ; SRM Institute of Science and Technology: Kattankulathur, Tamilnadu, India, 5 May 2021; Available online: http://dspace.srmist.edu.in/jspui/handle/123456789/43686?mode=full&submit_simple=Show+full+item+record (accessed on 17 August 2021).
- Edwards, D.C.; McKee, T.B. Characteristics of 20th Century Drought in the United States at Multiple Time Scales ; Atmospheric Science Paper No. 634. Climatology Report 97–2; Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University: Fort Collins, CO, USA, May 1997; Available online: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/170176 (accessed on 4 December 2022).
- Shah, R.; Bharadiya, N.; Manekar, V. Drought Index Computation Using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) Method For Surat District, Gujarat. Aquat. Procedia 2015 , 4 , 1243–1249. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Cagliarini, A.; Rush, A. Economic Development and Agriculture in India ; Bulletin; Reserve Bank of Australia: Sydney, Australia, 2011; pp. 15–22.
- Mishra, V.; Tiwari, A.D.; Aadhar, S.; Shah, R.; Xiao, M.; Pai, D.S.; Lettenmaier, D. Drought and Famine in India, 1870–2016. Geophys. Res. Lett. 2019 , 46 , 2075–2083. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Parida, Y.; Dash, D.P.; Bhardwaj, P.; Chowdhury, J.R. Effects of Drought and Flood on Farmer Suicides in Indian States: An Empirical Analysis. Econ. Disasters Clim. Chang. 2018 , 2 , 159–180. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
- Bhushan, C.; Srinidhi, A.; Kumar, V.; Singh, G. Lived Anomaly: How to Enable Farmers in India Cope with Extreme Weather Events ; Centre for Science and Environment: New Delhi, India, 2015. [ Google Scholar ]
- Yadav, B.P.; Saxena, R.; Das, A.K.; Manik, S.K.; Asok Raja, S.K. Rainfall Statistics of India-2018. Indian Meteorological Department, India. Available online: https://hydro.imd.gov.in/hydrometweb/(S(yetk5b2fro4iec55kfzkdkja))/PRODUCTS/Publications/Rainfall%20Statistics%20of%20India%20-%202018/Rainfall%20Statistics%20of%20India%202018.pdf (accessed on 30 November 2020).
- Yadav, B.P.; Saxena, R.; Das, A.K.; Manik, S.K.; Asok Raja, S.K. Rainfall Statistics of India-2019. Indian Meteorological Department, India. Available online: https://hydro.imd.gov.in/hydrometweb/(S(rfunuv45jwjlwhzmz1dbpc55))/PRODUCTS/Publications/Rainfall%20Statistics%20of%20India%20-%202019/Rainfall%20Statistics%20of%20India%20-%202019.pdf (accessed on 30 November 2020).
- Annual Report 2021. Indian Meteorological Department, India. Available online: https://mausam.imd.gov.in/imd_latest/contents/ar2021.pdf (accessed on 25 February 2022).
Share and Cite
Poornima, S.; Pushpalatha, M.; Jana, R.B.; Patti, L.A. Rainfall Forecast and Drought Analysis for Recent and Forthcoming Years in India. Water 2023 , 15 , 592. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15030592
Poornima S, Pushpalatha M, Jana RB, Patti LA. Rainfall Forecast and Drought Analysis for Recent and Forthcoming Years in India. Water . 2023; 15(3):592. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15030592
Poornima, S., M. Pushpalatha, Raghavendra B. Jana, and Laxmi Anusri Patti. 2023. "Rainfall Forecast and Drought Analysis for Recent and Forthcoming Years in India" Water 15, no. 3: 592. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15030592
Article Metrics
Article access statistics, further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.
Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals
We've updated our privacy policy. Click here to review the details. Tap here to review the details.
Activate your 30 day free trial to unlock unlimited reading.
drought indian case studies
You are reading a preview.
Activate your 30 day free trial to continue reading.
Check these out next
Download to read offline
Recommended
More Related Content
Slideshows for you (20).
Viewers also liked (20)
Similar to drought indian case studies (20)
Recently uploaded (20)
- 1. DROUGHT 1Drought Indian case studies Indian case studies
- 2. Drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply whether surface or underground water. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region. Although droughts can persist for several years, even a short, intense drought can cause significant damage and harm the local economy. Many plant species, such as cacti, have adaptations such as reduced leaf area and waxy cuticles to enhance their ability to tolerate drought. Some others survive dry periods as buried seeds. Semi-permanent drought produces arid biomes such as deserts and grasslands. Most arid ecosystems have inherently low productivity. 2 We can feel the dryness in your throat. The land is barren and covered in thin dust. cracks appear in the earth. This is drought, when water is so scarce that the existence of life becomes threatened. How do humans effects from drought? INTRODUCTION Drought Indian case studies
- 3. Physical aspects also used to classify drought. They clubbed into three major groups: Metrological Agriculture Hydrological 3Drought Indian case studies
- 4. 1. Less rainfall: 2. High Air pressure: When there is high air pressure, air falls instead of rising. With the air pressing down in a high pressure zone, no currents of water vapor are carried upward. As a result, no condensation occurs, and little rain falls to earth. 3. Low air pressure: Low-pressure systems see more cloudy, stormy weather. Usually, however, we experience both high- and low-pressure systems. 4. Monsoon role: Usually, summer winds known as monsoons carry water vapor north from the Indian Ocean inland, providing desperately needed rain. Sometimes, however, instead of blowing from north to south, they blow east to west. When that happens, the vapor doesn’t leave the Indian Ocean and many people suffer from the resulting droughts. 5. Water Vapor role: Droughts occur because water vapor is not brought by air currents to the right areas at the right times. Water that evaporates from the oceans is brought inland by wind to regions where it is needed. However, sometimes those winds are not strong enough. 4Drought Indian case studies
- 5. 6. Moisture: In some states, moisture is carried up from the ocean by blowing winds. This moisture is then pushed by other winds until it reaches the location. However, if the winds don’t blow at the right time, in the right direction, or with enough force, the moisture falls in other areas and suffers from drought. 7. Mountains region wind: Mountains can prevent wind from blowing moisture to needed regions. As air is moving past a mountain range, it is forced to rise in order to pass over the peaks. However, as the air rises, it becomes colder and the vapor condenses into rain or snow. When the air mass finally makes it over the mountain, it has lost much of its vapor. This is another reason why many deserts are found on the side of a mountain facing away from the ocean. This phenomenon is known as the rain shadow effect. 8. Rainfall pressure: Generally, rainfall is related to the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, combined with the upward forcing of the air mass containing that water vapor. If either of these are reduced, the result is a drought. 5Drought Indian case studies
- 6. 9. Global warming: Human activity can directly trigger exacerbating factors such as over farming, excessive irrigation, deforestation, and erosion adversely impact the ability of the land to capture and hold water. 10. Decline in groundwater : India has seen a sharp decline in groundwater levels, leading to a fall in supply, saline water encroachment and the drying of springs and shallow aquifers. Around 50% of the total irrigated area in the country is now dependent on groundwater, and 60% of irrigated food production depends on irrigation from groundwater wells. 11. Depletion of forest : The rapid depletion of forest cover is also seen as one of the reasons for water stress and drought. India has a forest cover of 76 million hectares, or 23% of its total geographical area – much lower than the prescribed global norm of 33%. 12. Rainwater harvesting : Combined with these and a host of other factors – poor irrigation systems, pressure from the increasing industrial use of water is the appalling indifference displayed towards rainwater harvesting. Little has been done over the years to drought- proof the country, when community based rainwater harvesting measures could easily accomplish this feat. 6Drought Indian case studies
- 7. 14. Rainwater harvesting : Combined with these and a host of other factors – poor irrigation systems, pressure from the increasing industrial use of water is the appalling indifference displayed towards rainwater harvesting. Little has been done over the years to drought-proof the country, when community based rainwater harvesting measures could easily accomplish this feat. 7Drought Indian case studies
- 8. Meteorology · Inadequate monsoon rainfall. · High temperature & evaporation, wind speed. · Unseasoned rains & fog / snowfall. Water Resources · Inadequate water availability, high water loss in storage & distribution, utilities. · Over exploitation of surface & ground water. Agriculture- Crop Yield · Shift in agricultural practices(low to moderate water demand crops to high crops). · Crop damage due to rain & snow / pest. Population · High greater rate of human & animals. · Location of high water consuming milestones at semi arid / arid regions. 8Drought Indian case studies
- 9. Drought in India has resulted in tens of millions of deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on the climate of India: a favorable southwest summer monsoon is critical in securing water for irrigating Indian crops. In some parts of India, the failure of the monsoons result in water shortages, resulting in below-average crop yields. This is particularly true of major drought-prone regions such as southern and eastern Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana , Gujarat, and Rajasthan. In the past, droughts have periodically led to major Indian famines, including the Bengal famine of 1770, in which up to one third of the population in affected areas died; the 1876–1877 famine, in which over five million people died; and the 1899 famine, in which over 4.5 million died. 9Drought Indian case studies
- 10. 10Drought Indian case studies
- 11. 11Drought Indian case studies
- 12. 12 0 200000 400000 600000 800000 1000000 1200000 1400000 1600000 1979 1982 1983 1987 2013 Area Affected in India by Drought Area Affected in (Km sq.) Drought Indian case studies
- 13. 13 0 50000000 100000000 150000000 200000000 250000000 300000000 1979 1982 1983 1987 2013 People affected in India by Drought People affected Drought Indian case studies
- 14. Drought 14Drought Indian case studies
- 15. (115075) (115076) 15Drought Indian case studies
Share Clipboard
Public clipboards featuring this slide, select another clipboard.
Looks like you’ve clipped this slide to already.
You just clipped your first slide!
Create a clipboard
Get slideshare without ads, special offer to slideshare readers, just for you: free 60-day trial to the world’s largest digital library..
The SlideShare family just got bigger. Enjoy access to millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more from Scribd.
You have now unlocked unlimited access to 20M+ documents!
Unlimited Reading
Learn faster and smarter from top experts
Unlimited Downloading
Download to take your learnings offline and on the go
Instant access to millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts and more.
Read and listen offline with any device.
Free access to premium services like Tuneln, Mubi and more.
Help us keep SlideShare free
It appears that you have an ad-blocker running. By whitelisting SlideShare on your ad-blocker, you are supporting our community of content creators.
We've updated our privacy policy.
We’ve updated our privacy policy so that we are compliant with changing global privacy regulations and to provide you with insight into the limited ways in which we use your data.
You can read the details below. By accepting, you agree to the updated privacy policy.
Extreme droughts and corresponding Summer Monsoon: A Case Study of 2009 Indian Drought
- Pramod Kumar DST-CPR, School of Public Policy, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, India
Drought is a sustained result of continuous surface and atmospheric heating and moisture deficit. In general, drought assessment is made based on various indices. However, the drought dynamics and associated surface energetics about the corresponding Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM, i.e., June, July, August and September-JJAS) still needs to be better understood. Prolonged surface heating causes reduction of soil moisture, surface/subsurface runoff and atmospheric moisture. Excess surface heating results from positive surface energy budget, which is computed using the term, surface net solar radiation (SNSR), surface net thermal radiation (SNTR), surface sensible heat flux (SSHF), and surface latent heat flux (SLHF). It may also be the possible reason for enhanced convection. Convection also depends on the moisture holding capacity of the atmosphere, which increases with increasing air temperature. These processes lead to moisture content deficit and rainfall suppression due to moisture divergence from the convective sources. India Meteorological Department (IMD) (station and 0.25° gridded) and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA-Interim reanalysis (0.25° resolution) datasets are used to study the extreme drought events. Drought indices such as Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), Soil Moisture Index (SMI) and Sensible Heat Index (SHI) are used. Results indicate that anomalous lowering of available surface soil moisture and increase of surface sensible heat flux is a possible cause for enhancing extreme drought during the 2009 ISM. The associated Hadley circulation shows anomalous weakening, which led to reduced northward moisture transport from the southern oceans, further acerbating moisture deficit. Most parts of India suffered from anomalous decrement in specific humidity in the lower to upper troposphere and related precipitation scarcity during the drought period. The atmosphere’s increased moisture holding capacity sets a weak monsoon due to moisture divergence from ocean/local convection. However, likely, the excessive surface warming (due to SNSR/SNTR trapped into the surface) led to the extreme drought during 2009 ISM.
How to Cite
- Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)
Copyright (c) 2022 MAUSAM
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License .
All articles published by MAUSAM are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This permits anyone.
Anyone is free:
- To Share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- To Remix - to adapt the work.
Under the following conditions:
- Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
- Adapt - remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
List of special issues
List of awards papers
Information
- For Readers
- For Authors
- For Librarians
- Impact Factor
Make a Submission
MAUSAM, the quarterly research journal brought out by the India Meteorological Department (IMD)
Follow MAUSAM Journal on:
Urban Drought pp 155–167 Cite as
Urban Droughts in India: Case Study of Delhi
- Shyamli Singh 4 &
- Vinod K. Sharma 4
- First Online: 31 December 2018
942 Accesses
2 Citations
Part of the Disaster Risk Reduction book series (DRR)
Delhi pioneers in tabling its climate change adaptation action plan in year 2009–2012 with a Water Mission jacketing water conservation, recycling, and distribution of water. The action plan deals with river water sharing pact with other neighboring states, decentralization of wastewater treatment system, connections, and treatment of drain water through interception sewer project. Revival of water bodies and recharging of rainwater, Delhi is having acute water shortage every year and needs long-term strategy for mitigating urban drought. There is a need to include urban drought as one of natural disaster and have its separate guidelines and preparedness plan as in California (USA) and other developed countries. The chapter deals with existing situation of water availability, well known facts establishing climate change such as rise in temperature, intensity of rainfall, storms and cloud bursts. The climate-related extreme events, viz floods and droughts show an increased occurrence and magnitude too. As Indian economy is agrarian, more emphasis is laid on floods and droughts. Ministry of Agriculture, the nodal ministry for droughts lays emphasis on rural area and agriculture. The urban water scarcity leading to “urban drought” is the responsibility of urban planners and urban municipal authorities. To add to the woes of the already scarce water and sanitation supply, the climate change is slowly but certainly skulking into effect, by the means of altering pattern of rainfall and diminishing groundwater resources. 16.78 million and a population density of 11,320/km 2 is housed in Delhi, Capital of India. The water demand is further increasing because of floating population and tourists. To add to the despairs, the population is gradually increasing every year with continuous migration from rural areas of neighboring states. Delhi is situated on the bank on river Yamuna, flanked by Indo-Gangetic alluvial plains in the North and East, the Thar Desert positions in the west, and the south is laced by the Aravalli. Out of the annual rainfall of 65–72 cm, 75% precipitation is experienced within a span of three months. Summer months from April to June show a maximum temperature of 40–45 °C. Water in summer season particularly in the urban slums need urban drought regulation with legal support, guidelines and regulation on water usage. There is need of sensitization of urban authorities, involving communities and academic institutions, and resident welfare organizations for public awareness. Similar plans can be shared with other metropolitan cities of India to provide water security to the urban population. Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction (DRR) is an imperative pledge of India thus various ministries, viz Ministry of Urban Development, Ministry of Water Resources, and Ministry of Agriculture the nodal Ministry can conjointly develop an approach for urban drought mitigation. India is committed to mainstream disaster risk reduction (DRR) and hence, Ministry of Urban Development, Ministry of Water Resources, and Ministry of Agriculture the nodal Ministry can conjointly develop a strategy for urban drought mitigation.
- Climate change
- Urban drought mitigation
- Urban planning
- Water and sanitation
- Capacity building
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution .
Buying options
- DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-8947-3_10
- Chapter length: 13 pages
- Instant PDF download
- Readable on all devices
- Own it forever
- Exclusive offer for individuals only
- Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
- ISBN: 978-981-10-8947-3
- ISBN: 978-981-10-8946-6
- Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
- Free shipping worldwide Shipping restrictions may apply, check to see if you are impacted .
Agrawal PK (2003) Impact of climate change on Indian agriculture. J Plant Biol 30:189–198
Google Scholar
Brooks David B (2003) Another path not taken: a methodological exploration of water soft paths for Canada and elsewhere. Report to Environment Canada, Friends of the Earth Canada, Ottawa, ON
Caviedes C (2001) El Niño in history: storming through the ages. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-2099-9
Centre for Science and Environment (2017) http://www.cseindia.org . Accessed 7 Sept 2017
City Population (2017) Delhi (India): Union Territory, major agglomerations & towns—population statistics in maps and charts. Retrieved 28 Feb 2017 from https://www.citypopulation.de/India-Delhi.html
Delhi Human Development Report (HDR) (2006) Oxford University Press, New Delhi
Delhi Jal Board (2007) http://www.delhijalboard.nic.in/ . Accessed 12 Oct 2007
Economic Survey of India (2007) The New Delhi municipal council act, 1994. New Delhi Municipal Council. Retrieved 3 July 2007
Gleick PH (2003) Global freshwater resources: soft path solutions for the twenty-first century. Science 302:1524–1528
CrossRef Google Scholar
Gupta AK, Tyagi P, Sehgal VK (2011) Drought disaster challenges and mitigation in India: strategic appraisal. J Curr Sci 100(12):1795–1806
Kandra H, Johri R, Kapur A (2004) Water auditing—tracking unaccounted-for water in Delhi. Waterlines 22(3):19–21
Lund I (1995) Optimization of transfers in urban water supply planning. J Water Resour Plan Manag 121(1). http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)07339496(1995)121:1(41)#sthash.WOM6q8re.dpuf , https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9496(1995)121:1(41)
Master Plan for Delhi-2021 (2010) Delhi Development Authority, New Delhi
Moncure James ET (1987) Urban water pricing and drought management. J Water Resour Res 23(3):393–398. Department of Economics and Water Research Centre, University of Hawaii, Manoa, Honolulu
National Disaster Management Plan (2016) National Disaster Management Authority, Government of India
National Sample Survey Office (2014) Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India
Sagane R (2000) Water management in mega-cities in India: Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, and Chennai. In: Uitoo J, Biswas A (eds) Water for urban areas: challenges and perspectives. United Nations press, New York, pp 84–111
Samra JS (2004) Review and analysis of drought monitoring, declaration and management in India. Working Paper 84. International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Schiller EJ, Latham BG (1987) A comparison of commonly used hydrologic design methods for rainwater collectors. J Water Resour Dev (3)
State of Indian Agriculture (2016) Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, Government of India
Subrahmanyam VP (1967) Incidence and spread of continental drought. WHO/IHD Report 2
United Nations (2016) The world’s cities in 2016, p 4. Retrieved 4 March 2017
Water policy for Delhi (2015) Department of Jal Board, Government of India
Wolff G, Gleick PH (2002) The soft path for water. In: Gleick PH (ed) The world’s water: biennial report on freshwater resources. Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 2002–2003
Zerah M (2000) Water: unreliable supply in Delhi. Manohar, Delhi
Download references
Author information
Authors and affiliations.
Indian Institute of Public Administration, I.P. Estate, New Delhi, India
Shyamli Singh & Vinod K. Sharma
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Corresponding author
Correspondence to Shyamli Singh .
Editor information
Editors and affiliations.
Sivanath Sastri College, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Dr. Bhaswati Ray
Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa, Japan
Prof. Rajib Shaw
Rights and permissions
Reprints and Permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter.
Singh, S., Sharma, V.K. (2019). Urban Droughts in India: Case Study of Delhi. In: Ray, B., Shaw, R. (eds) Urban Drought. Disaster Risk Reduction. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8947-3_10
Download citation
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8947-3_10
Published : 31 December 2018
Publisher Name : Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN : 978-981-10-8946-6
Online ISBN : 978-981-10-8947-3
eBook Packages : Earth and Environmental Science Earth and Environmental Science (R0)
Share this chapter
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
- Global Assessment Report (GAR)
- PreventionWeb
Special Events
- Global Platform
- International Day for Disaster Reduction
- World Tsunami Awareness Day
- Sendai Framework Monitor
- Voluntary Commitments
- Documents and publications
From risk to resilience, working paper 5: Uttar Pradesh drought cost-benefit analysis, India
The case study presented here analyzes the costs and benefits of alternative strategies for mitigating the impact of drought on rural livelihoods in Uttar Pradesh, India. The case study explores both insurance mechanisms for spreading drought risk and, as an alternative, the development of groundwater irrigation for eliminating such risk. While the study is based on analysis within a relatively narrow case area, the results have more general implications for the development of effective strategies for responding to drought and the challenges associated with global climate change.
Specifically, the study suggests that the benefits of insurance are likely to decline in relation to the costs if climatic variability increases substantially as a consequence of climate change. In addition, the study suggests that approaches to drought mitigation that are based on integrated combinations of strategies rather than single set of techniques or mechanisms may perform better. Our analysis indicates that irrigation plus insurance has higher return rates than either technique would if practiced on its own.
Please note: Content is displayed as last posted by a PreventionWeb community member or editor. The views expressed therein are not necessarily those of UNDRR, PreventionWeb, or its sponsors. See our terms of use
IMAGES
COMMENTS
The recent drought was worse than the Great Drought of 1874-1876 that led to crop failure, which in turn resulted in the Great Madras Famine
The southwest monsoon could switch into a drought-prone mode, lasting decades in the future, the authors of the study warned. India's current
Over 2016–2018, moderate-to-exceptionally low NEM rainfall gave rise to severe drought conditions over much of southern India and exacerbated
A Case Study of Drought and its Impact on Rural Livelihood in Meghalaya ... region recently. ... the seven states in the NER of India and is known as.
The average annual rainfall maps of regions in India for the three timelines described above are presented in Figure 3. It can be seen that Rajasthan, Punjab
Drought in India has resulted in tens of millions of deaths over the course of the ... 12 0 200000 400000 600000 800000 1000000 1200000 1400000
(CASE STUDY OF BANASKANTHA DISTRICT) ... According to India Meteorological Department (I.M.D.), the drought in ... The recent drought in the district.
India Meteorological Department (IMD) (station and 0.25° gridded) and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA-Interim
India had experienced 22 large-scale droughts until 2003; five of which were severe (Agrawal 2003). Peninsular and western parts of the country
The case study presented here analyzes the costs and benefits of alternative strategies for mitigating the impact of drought on rural livelihoods in Uttar