A complete rainwater harvesting system in Kiribati allowed community members to have easy access to clean water and larger storage tanks permitted large amounts of water to be available during times of drought.
The decision tree will guide you through the search questions and help develop your drought solution. You can skip questions when you are unsure about answers.
Proactive drought risk management could save lives and the livelihoods of millions of people.
Despite the costly emergency funding, deficiency of effectiveness, and lack of long-term vulnerability and sustainability causes, in many countries, the reactive approach to drought prevails nearly every time. The principles of risk reduction and prevention adopted as a proactive approach are an urgent need in order to switch from "crisis" management to "risk" management (Brüntrup et al. 2017).
Switching from reactive to a proactive approach to drought is a key topic in Risk Mitigation.
There are practical measures that can be taken immediately. Both measures and actions also called drought risk management options, build greater resilience to drought or reduce the impacts of drought. These measures concern all sectors affected by drought, based on their vulnerabilities. However, working with nature and understanding the necessary combination of measures is particularly important for the sectors reliant on the availability of water and ecosystems services.
Examples of Solutions for Risk Mitigation are:
Also, ecological benefits are originated by the nature-based solutions to drought, involving mitigation and adaptation to climate change as well as risk reduction to natural hazards.
Solutions to boost the resilience of people and ecosystems to drought.
The Integrated Drought Management HelpDesk provides access to tailor-made support for an integrated approach to drought management and the latest knowledge and guidance on drought management policy and practice to countries. It was developed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Global Water Partnership (GWP) with support of the over 30 expert institutions, which are partners of the Integrated Drought Management Program (IDMP).
Drought management plan and policy guidance as well as country examples is available at the Integrated Drought Management HelpDesk.
A continuously updated list of drought vulnerability and impact assessment tools, databases and examples are available at the Integrated Drought Management HelpDesk Pillar Section.
The decision tree will guide you through the search questions and help find your risk and vulnerability assessment tools. You can skip questions when you are unsure about answers.
How to use this tool:
Follow these steps to review and analyze the Drought Risk calculations in your location.
Use the dropdowns on the top left to select what data you want to explore
In the dropdown select the indicator you want to visualize
Please note: For Land cover change, you can switch between “from” and “to”.
You can use the “layer” button in the top right to select what to display
Please note: Using the toggle to show/hide the data layer you can quickly switch between the data view and the background map view.
Use the buttons at the top to select additional information to display for the selected indicator.
Use your mouse to place a pin on the map.
The drought risk assessment in this tool has been completed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and is applicable for 2000-2018. It uses a global-scale top-down data-driven approach that is consistent and applicable to all regions of the world. The maps are a first screening analysis and it is recommended that local assessments of risk are carried out to improve the outputs for targeting of drought preparedness and appropriate drought mitigation solutions. The outputs of the drought risk assessment provide a relative measure of drought risk globally – that is, the scale of risk is not a measure of absolute losses or actual damage to human health or the environment, but a ranking and comparison of specific geographic regions.
The data presented here has been provided by the European Commission (EC) and the Joint Research Center (JRC) and is based on the research as documented in the report: Carrão, H., Naumann, G., & Barbosa, P. (2016). Mapping global patterns of drought risk: An empirical framework based on sub-national estimates of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Global Environmental Change, 39, 108-124. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha. 2016.04.12
Drought risk is assessed for the period 2000–2018 and is based on the product of three independent determinants: hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. This dataset contains the data on Hazard. Drought hazard is derived from an analysis of historical precipitation deficits The Full Data Reanalysis Monthly Product Version 6.0 of the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC).
Drought risk is assessed for the period 2000–2018 and is based on the product of three independent determinants: hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. This dataset contains the data on Exposure. Drought exposure is based on an aggregation of indicators of population and livestock densities, crop cover and water stress. Global agricultural lands in the year 2000 Gridded population of the world, version 4 (GPWv4) Gridded livestock of the world (GLW), v2.0 Baseline water stress (BWS).
Drought risk is assessed for the period 2000–2018 and is based on the product of three independent determinants: hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. This dataset contains the data on Vulnerability. Drought vulnerability is computed as the composite of factors of social, economic and infrastructural indicators, collected at both the national and subnational levels
Drought risk is assessed for the period 2000–2018 and is based on the product of three independent determinants: hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. It is calculated with a geometric mean following this equation: Risk = (Hazard x Exposure x Vulnerability) ^ (1/3).
The drought risk impacts are proportional to the level of vulnerability and the degree of drought in a region.
A risk assessment provides important information that helps define priorities and develop actions that prevent drought from escalating into a disaster and mitigate its impacts. The assessment can also help identify vulnerable locations where the impacts of drought are or expected to be most severe, so that authorities can direct drought preparedness, mitigation and crises response actions to the most vulnerable communities and sectors. Vulnerability and risk assessments should be well-coordinated and consistent to ensure informed decision making and drought risk mitigation intervention priorities, as explained in pillar Three of the Drought Toolbox. Results of the assessment should be incorporated into land use and rural development planning, health care systems, environmental and natural resource management approaches to supply chains and business models, and agricultural as well as non-agricultural sectors.
Understanding and assessing drought vulnerability should take into account that various sectors, population groups and regions of a country can be more vulnerable than others or vulnerable in different ways. A National Drought Plan should include a risk assessment to ensure that preparedness, response and drought mitigation activities are effective, efficient and targeted at those who need them most.
The UNCCD 2018-2030 Strategic Framework includes a new strategic objective (SO3) on the consideration of drought in national action programmes. With particular reference to vulnerability and impact assessment, the COP 13 decision 29 focused on the opportunities for the Parties to consider completing assessments for sectors, population groups and regions vulnerable to drought.
What is included in this drought risk assessment?
Here, drought risk is calculated as the probability of harmful consequences or likelihood of losses resulting from interactions between drought hazard (for example, possible future occurrence of drought events), drought exposure (such as the total population, its sources of livelihood and assets in an area in which drought events may occur) and drought vulnerability (for example, the propensity of exposed elements to suffer adverse effects when impacted by a drought event) (Carrão et al. 2016). Drought risk is calculated by using the following formula:
Drought risk = Vulnerability x Hazard x Exposure
Each component of drought risk is calculated independently of each other, based on global-scale indicators of different spatial resolutions.
The Strategic framework for drought risk management and enhancing resilience in Africa is an initiative of the FAO and UNCCD, and developed by Tsegaye Tadesse of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This report highlights six principles for a Drought Resilient and Prepared Africa (DRAPA). It was developed in the framework of the African Drought Conference held in August 2016 in Windhoek, Namibia.
This White Paper is an outcome of the Regional Conference on Drought Preparedness in LAC Region, held in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, on 14–16 August, 2017. The conference was organized by UNCCD, FAO, WMO and the government of Bolivia, and was attended by national focal points of the UNCCD in the LAC region and representatives of FAO, WMO, the World Bank and the government of Bolivia.
The Drought Toolbox is developed around the three pillars defined in the DRAMP Framework.
The Drought Resilience, Adaptation and Management Policy (DRAMP) Framework takes an integrated, multi-pronged approach to reduce risks and impacts of drought. Organized around six cross-cutting goals, the DRAMP Framework identifies pragmatic actions for countries to better prepare and respond to drought, and guides the design and implementation of drought policy at national to sub-national level.
The purpose of this document is to provide a model national drought plan that can serve as a background document for national experts in the process of developing their national drought plans.
The Integrated Drought Management HelpDesk provides access to tailor-made support for an integrated approach to drought management and the latest knowledge and guidance on drought management policy and practice to countries. It was developed by The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Global Water Partnership (GWP) with support of the over 30 expert institutions, which are partners of the Integrated Drought Management Program (IDMP).
Drought management plan and policy guidance as well as country examples is available at the Integrated Drought Management HelpDesk.
A continuously updated list of drought monitoring and early warning tools and examples is available at the Integrated Drought Management HelpDesk Pillar Section. Also, an overview of the most commonly used drought indicators and resources to apply them is available at the Integrated Drought Management HelpDesk indicator and indices database and Handbook on Drought Indicators and Indices.
The Drought Portal is a monitoring system with freely available data for drought assessments. It provides access to several apps supporting decision makers at the local and basin level.
The aim is to support existing planning processes as the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis/Strategic Action Programme (TDA/SAP) and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) at the basin scale and Water Safety Planning at a local scale through the technical apps. The data is updated in near-real time, and you can use the tool to generate custom reports.
For video overview:
You can also learn more about the tool with the tutorial list on Youtube.
Practice and learn from the technical exercises that can be download as pdf files in this Dropbox link or visit the user guide for more in-depth information on the use of the apps and the intended support for the different stages within basin and local level planning.
The Flood and Drought portal is developed by UNEP-DHI, in collaboration with the UNCCD, as part of the Drought Toolbox.
The decision tree will guide you through the search questions and help find other databases and developed systems. You can skip questions when you are unsure about answers.
