Droughts affect millions of people and many domains, and incur costs that are mostly laid on the shoulders of the most vulnerable. Impacts are widespread, ranging from agricultural and energy production to human health and biodiversity, and even tourism. Climate change is aggravating the issue by increasing temperature and disrupting rainfall patterns, leading to more severe and frequent droughts in many regions in the world. As the world inches closer to getting 2°C above pre-industrial levels, we must better manage drought risks, understand root causes and take preventive action.

On the occasion of United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) publishing the new Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) Special Report on Drought 2021, UNU-EHS Senior Scientist Dr. Michael Hagenlocher, who contributed as Lead Author on the topic, highlights five insightful facts about drought risk.
1. We need to focus more on preventing droughts

We need to get ahead of the curve by focusing more on preventive measures, instead of reacting to droughts after they happen. By concentrating on identifying where risks and vulnerabilities lie, addressing root causes of risk and taking preventive action, we can reduce the costs of reacting and responding after a drought event has taken place, and also prevent damage for ecosystems, people and entire economies.
2. We need a global mechanism to reduce drought risk

The GAR Special Report on Drought recommends setting up a new global governance mechanism so that countries can address the cascading and transboundary nature of drought risk, broaden collaborative partnerships, promote adaptive governance and share capacities and learning. Drought is an issue that has a widespread impact around the world, and the more knowledge sharing and collaborative process take place, the better we are equipped to reducing drought risk globally. To achieve this, networking and partnerships across different scientific disciplines, policymakers, practitioners and citizens – including the most vulnerable – are needed.
3. Drought risks are increasingly systemic

Droughts are complex, interconnect across large areas, cascade through socioecological and technical systems, sectors and across borders at different scales, and linger through time. In a globally interconnected world, these complex interactions and feedbacks not only make the assessment of drought risk and the monitoring of the overall impacts of droughts more difficult, but also increase the risk of systemic failure. For example, system changes due to droughts can lead to higher food prices, which in turn affects health deterioration and poverty, and even labor system deterioration and education failure. While our understanding of the systemic nature of drought risks has evolved, many countries lack approaches and tools for assessing cascading and systemic drought risks.
4. A paradigm shift towards systems-based approaches in drought risk management is needed

We need more bold and systemic action to reduce current and future drought risks and increase resilience to hazards. Existing strategies and plans need to be complemented by more comprehensive systemic approaches aimed at preventing droughts and their cascading and possible systemic effects in the first place. In order to address drought risk holistically, we need to move from single and sectoral risk management approaches to multi-risk, cross-sectoral and systemic drought risk management approaches.
5. Reducing drought risks supports the Sustainable Development Goals

If well managed, efforts towards reducing drought risks and impacts will not only help to avert loss and damage in the future, but also contribute to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), e.g. through effects on poverty (SDG1), hunger (SDG2), health and well-being (SDG3), gender equality (SDG5), clean water and sanitation (SDG6) or sustainable cities and communities (SDG11).

Read the GAR Special Report on Drought ( chose the link from here above)

Fact 1: What is a drought?

A drought is a stage during which farmers are urgently waiting for rain because the soils run dry. The rivers have low water levels and the vegetation turns its color from green to yellow during the period of the growing season. Droughts are slowly emerging over time. Different drought measurements indicate different levels of severity, which can depend e.g. on the duration of dryness, or the response of the vegetation to dry conditions, or the amount of water stored in rivers, water reservoirs or in the soil.

Fact 2: What can we do about droughts?

With climate change, droughts will become more frequent and more severe. We need to plan for preventing droughts proactively by looking at how much water is needed and what kind of water resources are available under different drought conditions. We need to better understand which community and which agricultural land are at risk to droughts and why, and then we need to identify measures for prevention and build capacity locally. Examples for drought risk reduction measures are introducing more drought-resistant crops or livestock in at-risk regions, and establishing fodder banks and water reservoirs during periods of no drought, which can reduce the potential impacts during the next drought.

Fact 3: What makes droughts dangerous?

If not managed well, droughts can trigger a vicious circle where human well-being, the economy and the environment spiral downwards fast. If there is not enough water for agricultural production, farmers lose their harvest and livelihoods, the population is exposed to high food prices on the market and the most vulnerable face food insecurity. The need for more agricultural land to produce enough food under drought conditions might lead to deforestation, which reduces the capacity of the environment to store water. If there is not enough water for personal hygiene, people get sick, and if there is even not enough safe drinking water, the population may run into conflicts.

Fact 4: Why were countries affected by drought in 2018?

In 2017 and 2018, we have seen several exceptional water crises around the globe. Cape Town in South Africa was about to reach Day Zero, the day when water taps would have run dry in the city. The east coast of Australia recorded less than a fifth of its typical rainfall per season, the US drought monitor detected highest level of drought severity in central US states, and farmers in Germany were applying for governmental aid to overcome their financial losses due to lost harvests in the dry and hot summer in Europe. There is no single reason that can explain all these drought events, and each of them has its own narrative. South Africa for example was experiencing the late impacts of an exceptional drought in the years 2015/2016, which was at that time mainly triggered by the strongest recorded El Niño year, where warm surface temperature in the tropical Pacific Ocean brought warm and dry winds to South Africa. From there onwards, water levels in the reservoirs were continually decreasing, due to high demand of the growing population in the city of Cape Town combined with water losses due to leakages in the supply system and relatively dry weather conditions.

Fact 5: Which countries will be most affected by droughts in the future?

Those parts of the world which will not take preventive actions and to which drought will come as a surprise will be affected the most. Countries and regions most at risk usually share the following characteristics: Regions with large share of degraded land, where the livelihood of people depend on agriculture, where irrigation schemes cannot help to overcome lack of rain and those with little resources and capacities to cope with a drought. However, there are many different scenarios on how different parts of the world will be affected by droughts, ranging from the high-tech industrialized agricultural or energy sectors, which can experience large-scale economic losses due to severe drought conditions, to small-scale farmers who fully depend on the farm income.

Drought is a prolonged dry period in the natural climate cycle that can occur anywhere in the world. It is a slow-onset disaster characterized by the lack of precipitation, resulting in a water shortage. Drought can have a serious impact on health, agriculture, economies, energy and the environment.

An estimated 55 million people globally are affected by droughts every year, and they are the most serious 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.