60% districts in India cannot stand drought

SAYS A STUDY BY THE INDIAN INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY AT INDORE AND GUWAHATI

MUMBAI: Three out of every five districts in India are not prepared for a drought, says a study by the Indian Institutes of Technology at Indore (IIT-I) and Guwahati (IIT-G), highlighting the need for effective agriculture and water management.

Using data based on re- mote sensing from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’S Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensor, the two-member prepa- red a high resolution ecosystem resilience map of India from 2000 to 2014 and found that only 241 of the 634 districts, or 38 per cent, were resilient to droughts. The study considered daily rainfall records from 6,955 rain gauge stations across India from 1901 to 2015 by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

During the study period, 68% of the area was unable to support vegetation in a drought year. Of the 30 states and Union territories considered for the analysis, only 10 showed more than 50% resilience. While Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh had no resilient district, all four districts in Sikkim were found resilient. A resilient ecosystem can absorb hydro-climatic disturbances such as drought by increasing or maintaining its efficiency to use water that helps in sustaining its productivity.

The study ‘District-level assessment of ecohydrological resilience to hydroclimatic disturbances and its controlling factors in India’ was published in the Journal of Hydrology on July 31.

A 2017 IIT-G study by the same team found that only one out of four river basins in India – or six of 22 river basins – can support crops and vegetation during drought. “Terrestrial ecosystems play a very important role in supporting human life on earth. The productivity of an ecosystem is linked to crop production and food security,” said Manish Kumar Goyal, lead investigator and associate professor, civil engineering, IIT-I. “If the ecosystem is unable to maintain its productivity during drought, it may lead to a serious threat to food security.”

Researchers said the findings are important for effective ecosystem management policies in the backdrop of an increase in the frequency of droughts and heat waves in different parts of the country due to changing climate.

A 2016 study co-authored by the Indian Institutes of Technology at Gandhinagar and Kanpur found that the severity and frequency of droughts have not only increased in the recent decades but also shifted towards the Indogangetic area, central Maharashtra and coastal south-india plains that are important for agriculture.