Development of drought hazard index for vulnerability assessment in Pakistan
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Development of drought hazard index for vulnerability assessment in Pakistan Shahzada Adnan1,2 · Kalim Ullah1 Received: 14 March 2019 / Accepted: 11 June 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Drought is a silent meteorological disaster that spreads over time, affecting water availability for agriculture and livelihood in any region. The prediction of drought is a complex phenomenon; however, the negative impacts of drought are mitigated by monitoring drought events over a region. The present study provides spatial and temporal drought climatology over Pakistan, using 60-years (1951–2010) observational gridded data (0.5° × 0.5°) of precipitation from Global Precipitation Climatological Center and soil moisture from Climate Prediction Center. Using precipitation and soil moisture datasets, a novel drought hazard index is developed to determine drought vulnerability across different districts of Pakistan. Our findings identified 19 districts that are extremely vulnerable to drought, with northern regions being vulnerable to mild drought, whereas central and southern districts are vulnerable to high drought events. By using standardized precipitation index and soil moisture anomaly, six severe drought years were identified as 1952, 1969, 1971, 2000, 2001, and 2002 in different parts of the country. Deficiency of monsoon rainfall is a major cause of droughts in southern and rain-fed regions. This study is helpful for drought managers, hydrologists, and contingency planners to prepare mitigation and adaptation plans toward sustainable development in Pakistan. Keywords Drought hazard index · Vulnerability assessment · Climatology of Pakistan
1 Introduction Droughts are natural disasters affecting large areas and populations due to their unpredictable nature. About 50% of the earth’s land is vulnerable to droughts (Kogan 1997). According to the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT), more than 200 million people were affected and 11 million killed by droughts between 1900 and 2016 in the world (Guha-Sapir 2017). The effects of droughts persist long after their termination, unlike other hydrometeorological and geological disasters such as floods, cyclones, tornados, volcanic outbursts, and earthquakes (Vogt et al. 2011). Additionally, frequent droughts lead to * Kalim Ullah [email protected] 1
Department of Meteorology, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Islamabad, Pakistan
2
Pakistan Meteorological Department, Islamabad, Pakistan
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desertification and land degradation, a situation that was observed between the 1960s and 1970s in the Sahel (Zeng 2003). Rising global mean annual temperatures resulting from changing climate have further increased the frequency of droughts and dry conditions (Dai et al. 2004; Sheffield et al. 2012). Droughts can generally be divided into four major types based on the nature of water deficiency. The precipitation deficiency over a long period leads to meteorological droughts, and the shortage of soil moisture and water demands cause
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