The Drought Toolbox is currently being developed as part of the Drought Initiative by the close partnership collaboration of:

• The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification 
• The World Meteorological Organization 
• The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
• The Global Water Partnership
•  The Joint Research Center of the European Commission
• The United Nations Environment Programme-DHI Centre for Water and Environment 
• The National Drought Mitigation Center from the University of Nebraska

Drought is considered as one of the most far-reaching disasters, causing short and long-term economic and social losses to millions of people.

According to the High-Level Panel on Water (2018), about 40 percent of the world’s population is affected by water scarcity, with as many as 700 million people at risk of being displaced as a result by 2030.

Against this backdrop, the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) requested the secretariat and appropriate UNCCD institutions and bodies, including the Science-Policy Interface, within their respective mandate to (a) Implement a drought initiative for the biennium 2018−2019 which proposes action on  drought preparedness systems, regional efforts to reduce drought vulnerability and risk, and a toolbox to boost the resilience of people and ecosystems to drought  (Decision 29/COP13).

Drought: Monitoring and Early Warning

Drought is a natural hazard that can be monitored well due to the slow onset of events, enabling the observation of changes in precipitation, temperature, soil moisture, surface and ground water reserves, as well as social and economic behaviors.

Why use a Monitoring and Early Warning System? 

Most of the time, the drought is already well under way when it is recognized as such – it is impossible to predict when the drought starts or ends. The early detection of these changes is important for triggering effective and efficient actions to prepare for drought and mitigate its impacts. It is important that indicators and indices describe the impacts of drought accurately.

Drought monitoring shows the current state of a drought and how it develops over time. The level and the depth of monitoring may vary from place to place and with a degree of maturity of the monitoring system. By using the drought monitor, people can follow the development of drought through various stages. In some situations, it is possible to anticipate the climate conditions, based on the study of teleconnections, in particular, the sea surface temperatures, their causes and effects.

UNEP-DHI Tool 

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.

Tool overview

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: 

Video tutorials

You can also learn more about the tool with the tutorial list on Youtube.

 

Technical exercises and User guide

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.

Find more databases and developed systems

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. 

Decision tree

Decision tree

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.

Vulnerability and Risk Assessment

The drought risk impacts are proportional to the level of vulnerability and the degree of drought in a region. 

Why a risk assessment is important?

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.

How does a drought risk assessment fit into a National Drought Plan?

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.

• 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

Vulnerability and risk assessment tools

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

Decision tree 

Drought Risk Assessment Visualization Tool

How to use this tool:

Follow these steps to review and analyze the Drought Risk calculations in your location.

1.  Select a dataset

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”. 

2.  Choose what is on the display

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.

3.  Access additional information 

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

4.  Adding or removing pin on a 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 data

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

Metadata for Hazard 

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).

Metadata for Exposure

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).

Metadata for Vulnerability

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…

Metadata for Risk

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 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.

Risk Mitigation

Proactive drought risk management could save lives and the livelihoods of millions of people.

From a reactive to a proactive approach

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. 

Drought risk mitigation measures

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.

People and Ecosystem Resilience

Examples of Solutions for Risk Mitigation are:

• The exploration of drought-tolerant crops,
• The expansion of crop insurance schemes,
• The establishment of alternative livelihood’s income diversification in drought-prone areas,  
• The development of sustainable irrigation schemes for crops and livestock, and
• Water harvesting schemes that could boost the recycling and resources of water.

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.