Drought mitigation measures through climate adaptation for securing agricultural livelihoods in Uttar Pradesh

Prolonged and recurrent drought, being experienced in India and various parts of south Asia, is the manifestation of climate change, partly caused by human interventions. Drought has been one of the primary reasons for widespread poverty and environmental degradation including deteriorating water quality and water security. The world has been more drought-prone during the past 25 years and the vulnerability of tropical countries to drought is likely to increase (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007).

The South Asian region has been among the perennially drought-prone regions of the world. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal have experienced droughts at least once in three years in the past five decades. The effect of climate change has been observed the world over in the past several decades in the form of flash floods, hurricanes, droughts, changing precipitation patterns, heat waves and other natural disasters.

Bundelkhand hit by drought (2009) - Women in search of Water

Image courtesy: India Water Partnership

The land area classified as very dry has more than doubled since the 1970s. Many semi arid and arid areas are exposed to impacts of climate change and will suffer decrease in water availability. Increased precipitation intensity and variability will increase the risks of flooding and drought in many areas of India. Droughts, flash floods and other natural calamities are likely to worsen, disrupting the balance in the pattern of water supply and demand for water across agriculture, domestic and industry sectors. This will lead to reduction in the choice of cropping system and pose a serious threat to food security and increase frequency of water induced diseases.

Keeping in view the GWP Strategic Goal – II: Addressing critical development challenges, Output-1: Coping with climate variability and climate change through partnership, India Water Partnership (GWP-India) under its Strategy 2009-13, and GWP-SAS work plan 2010, focused on the status of drought in Uttar Pradesh to find out the best remedial measures to cope-up and mitigate the impacts of drought. For the purpose, GWP-India, with the support of Institute for Development Initiatives (IDI), New Delhi, took up a research study on the 2009 drought. The objective of the study was to develop a consensus document on drought mitigation strategies for securing agricultural livelihoods for the State of Uttar Pradesh, in the context of climate change.

After the desk research, experts from the field of Water, Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry, Community Development/ Infrastructure/ Insurance/ Markets were identified for development of concept papers. Based on these, a State level workshop was organized by IDI on 7^th December, 2010 at National Research Centre (NRC) for Agro-forestry, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh with the participation of scientists, professionals, NGOs and Government officials.

Dr. J. C. Dagar, ADG (Agronomy and Agro-forestry) from Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Govt. of India was the guest of honour. The keynote address was delivered by Dr. S. K. Dhyani, Director NRC, Jhansi. Papers were presented on the topics of agriculture, livestock, forestry, water and social issues by experts. The papers were discussed and a set of recommendations emerged that could form the basis for a drought mitigation strategy, which can be suitably adopted by the Government of Uttar Pradesh for appropriate drought preparedness and mitigation strategy. The salient points of the study are:

Physical and Social Impacts of Drought: 

Economic Impacts: 

Environmental Impacts: 

Adaptation Strategies:

The interventions required to manage the impacts of drought are as follows:

• Provision of need based science and technology applications with a focus on fusion of local knowledge and organized knowledge for development of  agriculture system and the livestock sector;
• Provision of renewable energy (RE) services for household improvement and/or enterprise development;
• Watershed based planning for managing drought, water and livelihoods;
• Strengthening different kinds of institutions (SHG, Farmers Club etc);
• As an important adaptation measure, there is a need to empower farmers with knowledge of water management techniques, drought resistant crops and varieties, conservation of ground water; and,
• There is a need to customize the training packages keeping in view the above requirements, as drought will be a recurring feature due to the effect of climate change and global warming.

India Water Partnership (IWP) is a non-profit organization with a goal of promoting Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). It is also accredited by the Global Water Partnership (GWP) headquartered at Stockholm, Sweden as GWP Country Water Partnership known as GWP-India. The mission of IWP is to support action of sustainable and integrated development and management of water resources at national, regional river basin/sub-basin and local levels in India through promotion of Integrated Water Resource Management.

Addressing adaptation to climate change with the support of zonal water partners across the country;  encouraging use of innovative low cost water saving technologies by the farming communities ; sustainable natural resource management; integrated domestic water management; promoting Area Water Partnership (AWP) for river basin management; conflict resolution on water sharing; inter-state trans-boundary water sharing issues, gender mainstreaming, etc. are some of the core priority areas of IWP.

For further information, please contact:

Dr. Veena Khanduri,