THE ROLE OF APPLIED RESEARCH FOR DROUGHT MANAGEMENT: A SOUTH ASIAN PERSPECTIVE

1
THE ROLE OF APPLIED RESEARCH FOR DROUGHT
MANAGEMENT A SOUTH ASIAN PERSPECTIVE

• VLADIMIR SMAKHTIN
• International Water Management Institute,
• Colombo, Sri Lanka
• 2-nd African Drought Risk and Development Forum,
  16-18 October, 2006.
• Nairobi, Kenya

2
GLOBAL PATTERN OF DROUGHTS
Arid and semi-arid regions of the world are also
more drought prone
3
FOCUS ON SOUTH ASIA
Uneven distribution of water resources in space
and time Over 40 of world irrigated area Over
85 of all freshwater withdrawn used in
agriculture Over 40 of the population live BPL
4
IWMI DROUGHT RESEARCH IN SOUTH ASIA

• OBJECTIVES
• To identify technical and policy gaps in drought
  research and management in the countries of the
  region - India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, etc.
  
• To suggest tools for effective drought mitigation
• To enhance regional cooperation in drought
  research and management
• APPROACH
• The State of the Art of drought management in any
  country may be assessed in terms of how well it
  is PREPARED to effectively respond to droughts
• Drought Preparedness implies
• Drought monitoring and early warning systems
  should be put in place
• Drought risks (hazard, vulnerability) should be
  understood and quantified
• Appropriate drought mitigation and response
  strategies should be developed in accordance with
  the quantified risks

5
ONLINE DROUGHT MONITORING

• Poor ground observation networks and delays with
  processing the most recent hydrometeorological
  observations. Need to utilize freely available on
  the Internet Remote Sensing data for Drought
  Monitoring System (DMS)
• A prototype DMS allows the condition of ground
  vegetation to be monitored in time and space,
  using RS indices (e.g. NDVI deviation from the
  long-term mean, Vegetation Condition Index - VCI)
• High-resolution data allows the condition of
  ground vegetation to be monitored up to the level
  of a village (MODIS 0.5 by 0.5 km)
• New data may be uploaded every 8 days, which
  makes it a near-real time system. Make it
  available through the Internet.

6
ONLINE DROUGHT MONITORING FRONT PAGE
(http//dms.iwmi.org)
Click on the Image, select a district and
examine drought conditions in your area of
Interest
7
ONLINE DROUGHT MONITORINGZOOMING ON A DISTRICT
OR A VILLAGE
Drought free zone
Mild Drought zone
Severe Drought zone
NDVI deviation map for a District
8
ONLINE DROUGHT MONITORING WHERE IT CAN BE USED

• To replace annual crop cutting experiments in
  India, which form part of a highly politicized
  drought declaration process.
• To form part of an online knowledge base system
  for Sri Lanka for disaster preparedness.
  Currently under development funded by private
  sector. Lack of national capacity for the DMS to
  become operational
• To become a part of a drought early warning
  system in Iran. Excellent facilities, expertise,
  capacity and funding prospects, but the political
  climate is not ripe

9
QUANTIFYING DROUGHT HAZARD HOW FREQUENT AND HOW
SEVERE ?
District-wise Distribution of Moderate, Severe
Extreme Drought Years in Rajasthan
10
QUANTIFYING DROUGHT HAZARD IS THE DROUGHT OVER?
Drought rainfall index for 1, 3, 6 ,12 months
(up to June 1988). Rajasthan Gujarat, India
11
QUANTIFYING DROUGHT HAZARDWHERE IT CAN BE USED

• In planning the location of emergency food
  supplies e.g. closer to the most drought prone
  areas
• In designing water resources or irrigation
  systems
• To define what is normal
• To define what action is needed by what ministry
  (e.g. water, agriculture, internal affairs) - at
  different levels of drought severity and extent
  and at different points in time of drought (going
  into or coming out of drought)

12
ANALYZING DROUGHT POLICIES AND INSTITUTIONS
Rainfall Measurement at Tehsil/Mandal and
District level

• Do the relevant policies and institutions exist ?
  If yes how do they interact, who is doing
  what (if at all)?
• Are they linked with national policies on water
  resources management, disaster management, is
  there a confusion ?
• Do they adhere to the principles of drought
  preparedness by adoption of
• early warning systems
• programs that reduce anticipated drought impacts
• emergency response programs that ensure timely
  and targeted relief during droughts ?

Crop Weather Watch Group
District Collector monitors his district
State level drought is watched by State Relief
Commissioner
Estimation of losses
Declaration of a Drought
Verification by Federal Government Team
Relief Quantum is decided
13
SOCIO-ECONOMIC SURVEYS

• Vulnerability of different population strata in
  different parts of South Asia remains largely
  un-known. There is a need for non-biased criteria
  and in-depth studies which could allow this gap
  to be filled. Surveys to-date have been very
  descriptive with little policy impact.
• Drought Relief efforts have targeted poorest, but
  the most drought-affected groups are small
  farmers, which receive much less support from
  government and NGOs.
• Drought relief expenditure has increased manifold
  during the last few decades (e.g. in India). This
  decreases self-reliance and increases budget
  deficit. But long-term measures are lacking

• Afganistan, Baluchistan and Sindh, Rajasthan
• Surveys aimed to identify and document
• How people on the ground perceive droughts
• How people adapt to recurring water scarcity
• What interventions by the governments/NGOs are
  needed to enhance this adaptation
• How effective the previous interventions were
• Feed into vulnerability assessment (who is at
  risk and why)

14
CONCLUSIONS

• To be relevant - Drought research has to be
  multidisciplinary, reflecting the multi-facet
  nature of a drought itself. This is challenging,
  takes you out of the comfort zone, requires
  permanent learning and understanding of different
  languages, but necessary.
• To have impact it is necessary not just to have
  some outputs (e.g. publications), but also see to
  its implementation and monitor the outcomes a
  somewhat different incentive of a higher caliber.
• To be useful - Drought research has to be timely.
  Research into climate change and associated
  growing drought risk may be important, but there
  are burning needs of the day, including existing
  climate variability and droughts. By addressing
  those today we prepare ground for better
  adaptation to CC tomorrow.
• To interest policy makers - it has to be clear.
  Getting a complex scientific message across is an
  art and a challenge. But also a necessity,
  because decisions around drought mitigation and
  response are and will be made regardless of
  whether scientific basis for them exists or not.
  

15
DROUGHT INFORMATION WEB SITE
http//www2.iwmi.cgiar.org/drw

• Information on all IWMI
• Drought research Projects
• Information on relevant
• Projects in other CG centers
• Access to monitoring tools
• and drought assessment
• software
• Links
• On-line registration, etc

16
THANK YOU