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.

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.

• Hazard has been established by using historical sequences of monthly precipitation deficits for the period between 1901 and 2010
• Exposure has been computed at the sub-national level using high spatial resolution gridded indicators of population and livestock density, crop cover and baseline water stress
• Vulnerability has been derived from a combination of factors of social, economic and infrastructural indicators

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. 

Decision tree 

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 
 

• A background map, loaded from an external source not associated with UNCCD data (currently the tool offers maps from Esri and Google)
• The indicator layer (only one is shown at a time. Use the toggle to show/hide the selected data layer)

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. 

• Map: Access the maps related to the indicator
• Metadata: Access the metadata, which includes a description and further information related to the data sources
• Legend: Toggle the view of a legend indicating the colors used to display the data on the map

Use your mouse to place a pin on the map.

• Click a location on the map to place a pin
• To remove a pin, click on the close "x" button

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

• World Bank, http://data.worldbank.org/products/wdi 
• U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), http://www.eia.gov/ . 
• Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.aspx#home 
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), http://stats.oecd.org/ 
• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/main/index.stm 
• Aqueduct, http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/aqueduct , and
• Global Roads Open Access Dataset (gROADSv1), http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/set/groads-global-roads-open-acce…

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).