Droughts are one of the most feared natural calamities in India impacting food production, the economy as well as the morale of millions of farmers in a country where agriculture is the livelihood of 60 percent of the population.
There were 26 major droughts during the period of 1871–2015, when the All India Summer Monsoon Rainfall (AISMR) was found to be lesser than the mean rainfall for the country.
While many of these droughts have negatively affected agricultural output and caused immense suffering to people, recent studies show that the risk of droughts over India is predicted to increase further, particularly so in the northeastern and western parts of India!
A drought can be defined as:
<p>“An<a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/017/aq191e/aq191e.pdf" target="_blank"> extended period—a season, a year, or several years—of deficient precipitation</a> compared to the statistical multi-year average for a region that results in water shortage for some activity, group, or environmental sector”.</span></p>
While this is a general definition, droughts can be classified into the following categories:
This classification of droughts is very useful to measure drought frequency, severity, and duration.
Droughts are caused due to lack of rains over extended periods of time. A number of factors such as temperature changes between land and water, changes in air circulation and erratic weather patterns can affect rainfall frequency and intensity leading to droughts
Human activities such as land use changes, deforestation, urbanisation, pollution can also have a negative impact on rainfall leading to dry conditions and loss of soil moisture.
Poor rainfall and high temperatures coupled with overuse of surface and groundwater resources and poor water management practices can lead to demand for water exceeding the available water supply. These can trigger droughts.
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.
There are considerable variations in the way droughts are declared at the state level in India. Many states still continue to rely on the traditional annewari/ paisewari/ girdawari (rough estimate of standing crops in terms of how many annas, paisa in a rupee, where the rupee is considered as the standard measure of full crops) systems of drought estimation where crop production estimates are obtained by calculating the value of crops as the value of the actual yield after harvest in relation to the value of the crop grown.
Areas with less than 50 percent annewari / paisewari / girdawari are considered to be affected by a drought. The annewari / paisewari / girdawari figures for kharif crops are calculated in December, while those for rabi crops in March. This has, however, led to a lack of uniform classification of droughts.
The Government of India has laid down revised norms for drought declaration in 2015 and according to the Manual for Drought Management published in 2016, the following four categories of indices are looked at to assess the extent of drought:
Rainfall is considered to be the most important while others are looked at in combination with rainfall.
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Other factors that are considered in the evaluation of droughts include:
The intensity of the drought is assessed by looking at the values of at least three of the above indicators and:
In the case of “severe” or “moderate” drought, states are asked to conduct a sample survey to make a final determination of drought.
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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. Many also blame the very approach of drought management that focuses on quick-fix solutions without taking into consideration the long-term sustainability and livelihood issues of the farmers. Declaration of drought has also been found to be riddled with problems and the new norms have been blamed for being too strict making it difficult for the states to prove "severe" drought and get relief from the Centre.
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.