Drought

Drought is either absence or deficiency of rainfall from its normal pattern in a region for an extended period of time leading to general suffering in the society. It is interplay between demand that people place on natural supply of water and natural event that provides the water in a given geographical region. The state of Kerala which receives more than 3000 mm of rainfall every year is declared drought affected as it is insufficient to have two good crops. The more the imbalance in supply the higher is the drought. The following will help explaining this general definition of the drought further.
            ♦ It is a slow on-set disaster and it is difficult to demarcate the time of its onset and the end.
            ♦ Any unusual dry period which results in a shortage of useful water.
            ♦ Drought is a normal, recurrent feature of climate. Climate is expected to show some aberrations and drought is just a part of it.
            ♦ Drought can occur by improper distribution of rain in time and space, and not just by its amount.
            ♦ Drought is negative balance between precipitation and water use (through evaporation, transpiration by plants, domestic and industrial uses etc) in a geographical region. The effects of drought accumulate slowly over a considerable period of time.


Causes

Though drought is basically caused by deficit rainfall, which is a meteorological phenomenon, it manifests into different spheres because of various vulnerability factors associated with them (see the box). Some of these factors are human induced. Though drought is a natural disaster, its effects are made worst in developing countries by over population, over grazing, deforestation, soil erosion, excessive use of ground and surface water for growing crops, loss of biodiversity.
           

Effects

Drought, different from any other natural disaster, does not cause any structural damages. As the meteorological drought turns into hydrological drought, the impacts start appearing first in agriculture which is most dependent on the soil moisture. Irrigated areas are affected much later than the rain fed areas. However, regions surrounding perennial rivers tend to continue normal life even when drought conditions are prevailing around. The impacts slowly spread into social fabric as the availability of drinking water diminishes, reduction in energy production, ground water depletion, food shortage, health reduction and loss of life, increased poverty, reduced quality of life and social unrest leading to migration.


Risk Reduction Measures

There are various mitigation strategies to cope up with drought.
          
1. Public Awareness and education: If the community is aware of the do’s and don’ts, then half of the problem is solved. This includes awareness on the availability of safe drinking water, water conservation techniques, agricultural drought management strategies like crop contingency plans, construction of rain water harvesting structure. Awareness can be generated by the print, electronic and folk media.

2. Drought Monitoring: It is continuous observation of the rainfall situation, availability of water in the reservoirs, lakes, rivers etc and comparing with the existing water needs in various sectors of the society.

3. Water supply augmentation and conservation through rainwater harvesting in houses and farmers’ fields increases the content of water available. Water harvesting by either allowing the runoff water from all the fields to a common point (e.g. Farm ponds, see the picture) or allowing it to infiltrate into the soil where it has fallen (in situ) (e.g. contour bunds, contour cultivation, raised bed planting etc) helps increase water availability for sustained agricultural production.

4. Expansion of irrigation facilities reduces the drought vulnerability. Land use based on its capability helps in optimum use of land and water and can avoid the undue demand created due to their misuse.

5. Livelihood planning identifies those livelihoods which are least affected by the drought. Some of such livelihoods include increased off-farm employment opportunities, collection of non-timber forest produce from the community forests, raising goats, carpentry etc.

6. Drought planning: the basic goal of drought planning is to improve the effectiveness of preparedness and response efforts by enhancing monitoring, mitigation and response measures.

7. Planning would help in effective coordination among state and national agencies in dealing with the drought. Components of drought plan include establishing drought task force which is a team of specialists who can advise the government in taking decision to deal with drought situation, establishing coordination mechanism among various agencies which deal with the droughts, providing crop insurance schemes to the farmers to cope with the drought related crop losses, and public awareness generation.