A drought is a serious natural disaster that may occur if there is a series of abnormally dry months or years. In addition, the drought frequently affects the people to leave their homes and move to wetter areas who are intended for refugees according to the International Organization for Migration.
An estimated 55 million people globally are affected by droughts every year, and they are the mostserious hazard to livestock and crops in nearly every part of the world.
Drought threatens people’s livelihoods, increases the risk of disease and death, and fuels mass migration. Water scarcity impacts 40% of the world’s population, and as many as 700 million people are at-risk of being displaced as a result of drought by 2030.
Rising temperatures caused by climate change are making already dry regions drier and wet regions wetter. In dry regions, this means that when temperatures rise, water evaporates more quickly, and thus increases the risk of drought or prolongs periods of drought.
Between 80-90% of all documented disasters from natural hazards during the past 10 years have resulted from floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, heat waves and severe storms.
Drought is a complex phenomenon as it involves elements of meteorology like precipitation, evaporation, evapo-transpiration, ground water, soil moisture, storage and surface run-off, agricultural practices, particularly the types of crops grown, socio- economic practices and ecological conditions.
Types of Droughts
Meteorological Drought: Meteorological drought occurs when there is a prolonged time with less than average precipitation. Meteorological drought usually precedes the other kinds of drought. Agricultural droughts affect crop production or the ecology of the range.
Agricultural Drought: It is also known as soil moisture drought, characterised by low soil moisture that is necessary to support the crops, thereby resulting in crop failures. Moreover, if an area has more than 30 per cent of its gross cropped area under irrigation, the area is excluded from the drought-prone category.
Hydrological Drought: lt results when the availability of water in different storages and reservoirs like aquifers, lakes, reservoirs, etc. falls below what the precipitation can replenish.
Ecological India Extreme Drought Affected Areas:
Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, parts of the North-East, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Telangana are the worst hit.
These states are home to 500 million people, almost 40% of the country’s population.
Included here are also the districts like Jaisalmer and Barmer from the Indian desert that receive less that 90 mm average annual rainfall.
