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Graph S. Trivikrama Rao, Ph.D.There is scientific consensus that climate change has been contributing to rising surface temperatures, changing weather pattens, and extreme weather events leading to extreme flooding in some regions and persistent drought in other regions. Focusing on the extreme weather events induced by climate change in the third paper, B Walter Robinson b suggests that humanity could face more extreme weather and increasingly devastating impacts (i.e., severe flooding, extended drought) from these events. [Extracted from the article]

Literature has suggested that droughts and societies are mutually shaped and, therefore, both require a better understanding of their coevolution on risk reduction and water adaptation. Although the São Paulo Metropolitan Region drew attention because of the 2013–2015 drought, this was not the first event. This paper revisits this event and the 1985–1986 drought to compare the evolution of drought risk management aspects. Documents and hydrological records are analyzed to evaluate the hazard intensity, preparedness, exposure, vulnerability, responses, and mitigation aspects of both events. Although the hazard intensity and exposure of the latter event were larger than the former one, the policy implementation delay and the dependency of service areas in a single reservoir exposed the region to higher vulnerability. In addition to the structural and non-structural tools implemented just after the events, this work raises the possibility of rainwater reuse for reducing the stress in reservoirs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how hydrological drought affected suspended sediment yield (SSY) in the Mediterranean Ofanto River basin, southern Italy, and in its five sub-basins from 1951 to 1989. The Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index over a scale of 12 months (SPEI12) has been used to compute the hydrological drought in the investigated span of time. SPEI12, mean and maximum monthly discharge (Qmean and Qmax), monthly rainfall erosivity, monthly simple daily intensity index and monthly SSY were used to assess the relationships between dry/wet cycles, streamflow and SSY through the Pearson correlation matrix. Qmean and Qmax are significantly correlated with SSY, while SPEI12 and rainfall intensity do not show good correlation with SSY. Furthermore, from the overall analyses it emerges that sediment yield estimations were higher mainly during the wet period following a period of drought or during a drought period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding spatiotemporal patterns of climate variability and trends is essential to designing context-specific adaptation and mitigation interventions for climate change impacts. To this end, this paper examines the 1983–2016 rainfall and temperature variability and trends using merged satellite-gauge station data in the UNESCO designated Cultural Landscapes of Konso, Ethiopia. We have employed a non-parametric Mann-Kendall test to analyze rainfall and temperature trends, whereas the coefficient of variation (CV) has been used for variability analysis. The distribution and severity of meteorological droughts were mapped using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). Our findings revealed an increase in annual and summer (Kiremt) season rainfall by 3.16 mm and 0.42 mm per year, respectively. However, rainfall in the spring (Belg) season decreased by 1.12 mm per year. Our findings also showed a substantial spatiotemporal variability in drought events due to variations in rainfall and topography. Consequently, the observed increase in frequency and the spatial extent of drought pose potential threats to rainfed farming, which gradually exposes smallholders to food insecurity and socioeconomic vulnerability. Therefore, agroecological-based local adaptation and mitigation interventions to climate variability are needed to enhance the resilience of smallholder farmers and ensure the continuity of the Konso cultural landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catastrophic extreme weather events are destructive, costly, and bring about significant harm and distress. As a consequence of a warming world, extreme weather is only expected to increase in intensity. Unravelling the ways that frontline communities, such as those in the Cook Islands, are experiencing, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from, extreme events over time is vital to document, learn from, and share widely. This paper, drawing from 10 interviews with local Cook Islanders from both urban and remote settings, explores people's perspectives and experiences of, as well as responses to, extreme weather events, with a focus on droughts and cyclones. We found that the immediate devastation of cyclones and the chronic devastation of droughts has impacted participants in diverse ways, most of which take an emotional toll and affect people's abilities to meet household needs. These participant experiences with extreme weather events and the subsequent lessons that have transpired have led to the development of significant local knowledge and traditional coping strategies which enable anticipation, preparation, and adaptation. We highlight the ways that participants draw on cosmology, worldviews, and community resources for different courses of action in response to extreme weather. Tacit knowledge and endogenous spiritual and community resources offer Cook Islanders agency, hope and resilience in the face of climate change into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Murray-Darling River system is perhaps Australia's most important, with significant social, cultural and environmental values including 16 Ramsar listed wetlands. The MDB is home to 2.6 million people and produces about $24 billion worth in agricultural production each year (about one-third of total value for Australia). Hydrologic issues, typified by water availability and quality, have existed for many years, peaking during the Millennium drought from 1997 to 2010. Competing interests (i.e. irrigation, tourism, environmental heath), and the declining flows and water quality during droughts, led governments and water management agencies to consider the risks to water resources in the system in the early-mid 2000s. This paper reviews changes to risks associated with forest dynamics, as identified by - afforestation and bushfire – and considers new issues that have emerged since that analysis. It was found that the potential impacts of bushfire on stream flows were over-estimated in past studies, and that a planned significant afforestation expansion into agricultural and grazing land that was projected to reduce stream flows did not occur. While these two risks now do not seem likely to have significant future impacts on flows, or consequent effects on downstream users, the interaction of elevated CO2 and increasing temperatures on vegetation functioning and subsequent hydrologic consequences at catchment scale require further research and analysis. Reduced rainfall and increased temperatures under future climate change are likely to have an impact on inputs and flows. Uncertainties in how these changes, and feedbacks between climate, drought, more frequent fire and vegetation responses, impact on system hydrology also require further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between May 2017 and September 2018, the Staffordshire Record Office and the University of Liverpool ran a collaborative volunteer research project titled Historic Flooding and Drought in Staffordshire, part of the AHRC funded project Learning from the Past — exploring historical archives to inform future activities. As researchers working closely within an archive service alongside staff and closely with volunteers, the Flooding and Drought project presented the opportunity to examine collaboration from multiple perspectives at once — the archive, the researcher or collaborating partner, and the volunteers. This paper argues that while not ideal for all archive volunteer activities (such as cataloguing), such projects can facilitate activities that an archive cannot achieve alone. Moreover, by providing stimulating and challenging activities, collaborations can capture volunteer interest, draw in new volunteers, develop volunteer skills and deepen volunteer loyalty and connection to the archive. Further, by working closely with the volunteers and valuing their experience and skills, the researcher can benefit from the support of those who have an intimate knowledge of the archive and the surrounding area. By fostering these collaborations and relationships, archives can provide valuable support for both their volunteers and researchers that might not otherwise be possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are very grateful to the authors Aksoy and Cavus for their constructive contributions to the discussion of our earlier paper "Drought assessment in a south Mediterranean transboundary catchment." Our paper focused on the variability of rainfall and drought patterns in the Medjerda catchment in Tunisia and analysed the underlying causes resulting in these changes. Scope exists to improve the integration of the space–time variability in the drought assessment methodology. Different drought indices and statistical methods are employed in the study. The discussion of the article concentrates almost exclusively on the use of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and some mistyped equations. In this reply, we clarify the problematic points of misunderstanding and discuss the classification of droughts based on the SPI values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being the most tangibly impacted by the first-order effects of a warming climate, much of Australia's agricultural regions have remained relatively conservative in their views on climate change and the need for adaptation. This paper aims to understand how the experience of an extreme climate event like the 2017–2020 drought might shift opinions and values on these issues within agricultural communities. Through in-depth interviews with 20 graziers across Northwest NSW during the worst days of the drought, we found that various psychological lock-ins, historical memories of resilience, and local cultural values appeared to be undermining the perception of their vulnerability, while enhancing perceptions of their ability to endure. Such discursive constructions appear to explain why a jarring climatic event like the 2017–2020 drought was failing to produce a noticeable shift in their views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the viability of precautionary savings as a hydrological drought risk management instrument in irrigated agriculture. To that end, first, the drought savings account (DSA) is proposed as a personal savings account to which farmers make regular contributions, with withdrawals allowed in the event of water supply gaps to guarantee a minimum income. Second, the implementation of the proposed instrument is empirically assessed in an illustrative case study using an innovative simulation approach. Results obtained suggest the DSA is actuarially sound, supporting its implementation as a cost-effective instrument to hedge hydrological drought risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To add to the engineer's toolkit for the twenty-first century challenges, we demonstrate a novel systems model for understanding urban impacts. The model captures interdependencies between different interconnected systems (or sectors, e.g. recreational services or public healthcare) in cities, from the tangible (e.g. resources such as roads) to the more intangible (e.g. outcomes such as the sustainable economy). The model is hazard-agnostic in that it can be modified to capture the impacts of different shocks on tangible parts of the system and how these cascade through to more abstract and high-level city tasks and outcomes. This paper demonstrates three hypothetical scenarios (a flood, drought, and pandemic) and their impacts on a generic UK city. Using the network analysis, impacts can be tracked and interpreted to help prioritise requirements for resilience-building. We propose this new tool be taken up and tested by others working to address global challenges such as the Sustainable Development Goals and grappling with the interconnectedness of urban systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Swaziland was affected severely by the 2015–16 El Nino drought, which severely affected agriculture and food security. Of special interest to this paper is its impact on irrigated home gardens on the Komati Downstream Development Project. This project was designed to extend irrigated sugar cane onto customary tenured Swazi Nation Land, with a secondary objective to improve food security by enabling farmers to convert some land from rain-fed to irrigated maize and vegetable production. A random questionnaire survey was undertaken on three farmers' associations of the KDDP which have adopted irrigated home gardens, sampling approximately 50 per cent of those eligible. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with committee members of the associations. The paper concludes that unlike previous droughts where the gardens enabled farmers to produce food at a time when rain-fed production had collapsed, in the 2015–16 drought, the impact on water supplies was so great that the irrigated gardens also failed, compromising the food security of the farmers and their neighbours. It also appears that a significant number of farmers are beginning to question the long-term viability of their current farm system in the face of what many perceive as long-term changes in the regional climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on long-term doctoral fieldwork on bush fires in New Caledonia, this paper aims to explore the double assumption that bush fires were shaped as a public issue through specific categorisations of human and natural elements, and that this work resulted in negative outcomes as far as the environment is concerned. This paper will address the question of mediation between human agency (colonial history, population distribution and development choices) and the production of 'bush fires' as an event category and as a 'public problem' calling for a policy solution. More specifically it will address the validity of the definition of bush fires as a 'disaster'. While this phenomenon is both a discursive creation rooted in colonial imagination and a consciously forgotten strategy used by administrators and settlers to control land and dominate indigenous people, its growing importance today is related to the emergence of environmental concerns. However, one must not forget other issues obscured by the smoke of bush fires, namely a declining cattle farming sector and its lasting environmental impacts on drought (also considered a 'natural disaster' in New Caledonia by inhabitants, local administrations and scientists) and biodiversity loss. Addressing this issue leads to more general questions about the manner in which policy-makers, naturalists and environmentalists conceptualise and morally address environmental (natural and man-made) phenomena through time in a colonial/postcolonial setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climatic anomalies associated with El Niño bring prolonged droughts and night-time frosts that devastate subsistence gardens in the Papua New Guinea highlands. As a customary process of adaptation to the subsequent food insecurity caused by crop-destroying frosts, people migrate to lower altitude areas where kin and friends provide sustenance and social support. However, with increasing economic development and the demise of collective kin endeavours in the region, long-distance migration networks no longer appear to offer people respite from food insecurity. In this paper, I examine the changes in social responses to El Niño-caused food shortages at varying scales – from subsistence farmers to international aid agencies – over the past several El Niño events. The paper explores the production of vulnerability when customary social-ecological systems of adaptation intersect with regional and national politics, development efforts, and humanitarian aid agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is one of the important and costliest disaster all over the world. With the accelerated progress of climate change, its frequency of occurrence and negative impacts are rapidly increasing. It is crucial to initiate and sustain an early warning system to monitor and predict the possible impacts of future droughts. Recently, with the rise of data driven models, various case studies are conducted by using Machine Learning algorithms instead of using pure statistical approaches. The main goal of this paper is to conduct a drought forecasting study for a weather station located in Marmara Region. For that purpose, firstly, widely used univariate drought index, Standardized Precipitation Index is calculated for Bursa station. Thereafter, both the historical information retrieved from time series data and its wavelet transformation are considered to investigate Nonlinear Auto-Regressive and Nonlinear Auto-Regressive with External Input (NARX) type Neural Network (NN) models. According to a pool of Goodness-of-Fit (GOF) tests, the forecasting performance of the models with various number of hidden neurons are compared. The recent findings of the study showed that considering the data with its wavelet transformation under (NARX-NN) has benefits to increase the capacity of forecasting the drought index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, remote sensing is being used to monitor vegetation degradation in areas of concern. In recent years, drought and water shortages have caused significant degradation of the wetland vegetation in Zhalong Wetland of Heilongjiang province, China. This paper employed middle- and high-resolution Landsat images to construct a Linear Spectral Mixture Analysis of the wetland, with the end member extraction verified by feasibility analysis and with vegetation cover data extracted over nearly 30 years. By considering the problem of poor timing with middle- and high-resolution images, this paper proposes a phase-transform method that combines the time advantage of moderate-resolution spectroradiometer images with the spatial advantage of high-resolution Landsat imagery. Based on an intensity analysis model, the temporal and spatial characteristics of vegetation cover in the study area were analyzed using a time scale and the level of vegetation cover. The results show that (1) from 1985 to 2015, the vegetation cover showed an overall tendency to degrade, and (2) vegetation cover was extracted based on the phase transformation and linear spectral mixture models with an accuracy of 0.8628, which is higher than that of traditional remote sensing methods. Improving the prediction accuracy in vegetation transfer is of great theoretical value in relation to global climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a methodology is proposed to support water decisions by selecting and evaluating reservoir operating rules (OR) based on hydrological scenarios. The methodology includes optimization and simulation tools within an Implicit Stochastic Optimization (ISO) framework. The paper presents some improvements to the traditional ISO that overcome some limitations affecting previous works. Thanks to the collaboration with Regional Water Authorities in Southern Italy, the proposed methodology, called Modified Implicit Stochastic Optimization (MISO), has been tested in the Agri-Sinni water system. In a participatory and integrated risk management approach to drought events, the reservoir OR defined in the MISO approach based on correlations between releases, storages and inflows performed better than the actual OR in the Agri-Sinni water system and the OR from a simulation-alone procedure. In addition, the user can obtain a significant reduction of computational time by applying the MISO technique in a Grid computing approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with other crops, peanut planting costs are lower, and it is very drought-tolerant, and can obtain better benefits. In this paper, 16 peanut varieties were selected, and drought resistance tests were carried out at the flowering and cutting stage under water stress conditions. The root characteristics related to drought resistance of peanuts and the physiological mechanism of drought resistance of different varieties were studied to screen peanut varieties with better drought resistance. According to the relative value (RV) of each trait, the drought resistance coefficient (DC) and drought resistance are calculated. The results show that A596, NC6, Shanhua11 and shanhua7 have strong drought resistance, Shanhua12, Nongda 818, Shanhua 8, Huayu 20, Haihua 1, 79266, Shanhua 9, Hua 17 have moderate drought resistance, while Jihua 4, Guihua 836 , ICG6848 and Baisha1016 have weaker drought resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates climate change impacts on the hydrology and water quality of Brazilian semi-arid reservoirs. An integrated approach coupling climate, hydrological and water quality models was proposed. Five general circulation models (GCMs) and two future scenarios (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) were used for the projections. The simulations showed that uncertainty in climate forecast significantly impacted hydrological and water quality outputs. Some scenarios revealed a strong decrease in streamflow and storage volume. On the other hand, 40% of multi-GCM projections indicated reservoir eutrophication. The impacts on hydrology and water quality under SSP5-8.5 were more significant than those under SSP2-4.5. The results also indicated that drought events may be prolonged under climate change, principally at the end of the 21st century for SSP5-8.5, and may significantly increase the total phosphorus concentration. This suggests that tropical semi-arid reservoirs could be more vulnerable to eutrophication in scenarios of climate change than those in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are different definitions for multivariate records which are based on component-wise approach. In this paper, a new approach based on the notion of depth is employed for introducing a depth-based record as a different multivariate record. This record is more in line with univariate records, has Markovian property, ascertained marginal and joint distributions, and some other exclusive features compared to other records. The depth-based procedure can recognize records satisfactorily. The performance of which is evaluated through studying the drought in Kermanshah, Iran, and the air pollution in Leeds, England. The outputs confirm the suitable potency of depth-based record procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, recent climate change has resulted in prolonged droughts, massive devastating bushfires, extreme flooding, and more frequent and intense cyclones, all of which affect archaeological and historic heritage. In this paper, we report on new research on rock art at a site called Djarrng in western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. Djarrng was heavily impacted by Tropical Cyclone Monica in 2006. We have visited the site sporadically since 1992, most recently in September 2019. We also have photographs taken in 1979 and accessed others taken in 1965 and so are in a position to document change to rock art panels over a 54 year period. We discuss not only change at the site as a result of the cyclone but also more general changes to rock art imagery at Arnhem Land sites in the past two hundred years, as well as lessons learnt from natural disasters that could be important for future rock art conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015 and 2016, South Africa experienced a severe drought resulting in water restrictions and food price inflation. A year later, while the proportion of food secure households remained constant, the proportion of those experiencing severe food insecurity increased. This paper investigates the socio-economic determinants of increasing food insecurity during and after the drought. Two cross-sectional household surveys were carried out in the district of iLembe in November 2016 and 2017. Household food insecurity was measured using the Coping Strategies Index. The results indicated changes in socio-economic determinants of food insecurity over time, with the poorest households experiencing the worst levels of food insecurity. After the drought, having a child under-five years was positively associated with food insecurity, while being located in a rural area was negatively associated. Policies that limit household vulnerability to price inflation, and interventions that protect poorer households from the effects of drought should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Projections are that climate change will increase drought risk and intensity globally. Groundwater is critical during drought, but worldwide aquifers are experiencing unrecoverable groundwater declines. California is ideal to explore strategies for managing groundwater for drought resilience. Many areas rely on groundwater, yet multiple basins are in overdraft. Management was historically centered in local water districts, but in 2014, the state passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) establishing mandatory groundwater management rules. This paper discusses strategies used prior to and post SGMA to sustainably manage groundwater for drought resilience, and evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies. It highlights two recent approaches that can increase drought resilience under climate change: flood-MAR – using flood flows for both recharge and irrigation; and the development of locally sited groundwater drought reserves that can serve as a buffer during extreme droughts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of the vast importance of weather shocks for population processes, limited work has investigated the micro-level processes through which weather shocks influence the transition to adulthood in low-income contexts. This paper provides a conceptual overview and empirical investigation of how weather shocks impact the timing, sequencing, and characteristics of young women's life course transitions in low-income rural settings. Drawing on the case of Malawi, we combine repeated cross-sections of georeferenced Demographic and Health Survey data with georeferenced climate and crop calendar data to assess how growing-season drought shocks affect young women's life course transitions. Discrete-time event history analyses indicate that in this context, exposure to growing-season drought in adolescence has an accelerating effect on young women's transitions into first unions—both marriage and cohabitation—and into first births within unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses warm season hydroclimatic variability in the southern Appalachian region of the southeastern U.S., where precipitation can vary as much as 127 mm or more, with maximum seasonal totals exceeding 736 mm in extreme cases. Despite the occurrence of droughts, floods, and their socioecological impacts, hydroclimate variability is still poorly understood. This study characterizes the regional scale variations in the hydroclimate by examining the daily distribution of precipitation patterns in different topographic environments. Parameter-elevation relationships on independent slopes model (PRISM) gridded precipitation estimates are used to identify the location and frequency of different types of rainfall events. Several types of clustering algorithms are used as a regionalization approach to define areas where the precipitation regime exhibits similarities in its frequency of occurrence. The results are compared with internal validation statistics and a visualization is used to assess how well the resulting hydroclimatic regions align with different topographic environments. This study reveals the intricate spatial footprint of dry and wet regimes and demonstrates how clustering applications can be used with gridded climate data to determine where extremes are most likely to develop across mountain catchments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, the St Lucia Estuarine Lake System and uMfolozi River joined via an estuarine bay before exiting to the sea. In 1952, separate mouths were created, because of sediment problems originating from the uMfolozi River. During the 2004 drought, the mouth of the 525 km2 St Lucia System closed and has remained so to date, except for a single opening in 2007, lasting six months. From 2008, management actions have been implemented to 'reconnect' St Lucia to uMfolozi. This study assessed the effects of a new channel between the two on the St Lucia fish community and its effectiveness for recruitment of marine species. Twelve marine species previously absent and a 67% increase in abundance in the Lower Narrows were recorded after channel opening, which allowed for limited recruitment of marine species. This paper reviews the effects of a permanent connection between St Lucia and uMfolozi, via the uMfolozi Spillway, established in 2012, which has pushed the system into a prolonged freshwater state severely reducing the estuarine fish fauna. This, the lack of a connection to the sea for 15 years and issues potentially associated with increased sedimentation in the lower reaches are reviewed in relation to management decisions that have been implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of drought, a devastating natural disaster, have expanded due to intense global warming. Therefore, studying the spatio-temporal evolution and formation mechanism of drought is urgent and important. In this paper, the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) of the source region of Yellow River was calculated for the years 1961–2015, and the heuristic segmentation and Modified Mann-Kendall methods were used to study the change points and trends of precipitation, temperature, and SPEI. The empirical orthogonal function was used to study the major modes of the SPEI, and cross wavelet analysis was used to demonstrate the relationship between SPEI and large-scale climate factors. The results initially demonstrated no change point and an insignificant positive trend in precipitation. Temperature revealed a significant increasing trend, and a change point was detected in 1997. SPEI indicated a change point in 1993, and a significant increasing trend was observed thereafter. These findings reveal that drought in the study area is highly related to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The North Atlantic and Arctic oscillations caused similar impacts on drought. By comparison, changes in SPEI were slightly related to the Pacific decadal oscillation. These results provide useful information for evaluating drought changes in the study area, early warning of drought, and water resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the effects of different CO2 concentrations (400 and 800 μmol·mol−1) on photosynthetic gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence of mulberry (Morus alba L.) seedling leaves under drought stress were studied using an artificial climate chamber. The results showed that under non-drought conditions, the stomatal concentrations (Gs) and transpiratration rate (Tr) of mulberry seedling leaves decreased slightly with increased CO2 concentrations, but the net photosynthetic rate (Pn) increased significantly. Under mild drought stress (5 days of drought), higher CO2 concentrations significantly affected the photosynthetic gas exchange of mulberry seedling leaves, but had little effect on chlorophyll fluorescence. Under severe drought stress (10 das of drought), increased CO2 concentrations not only alleviated drought stress by increasing the WUE of mulberry seedling leaves, but also significantly increased its PSII photochemical activity, which promoted electron transfer on the PSII acceptor side. In conclusion, increased CO2 concentrations could raise the WUE of mulberry seedling leaves under normal water conditions and drought stress, and this effect was more significant under drought stress. Under severe drought stress, increased CO2 concentrations improved the drought resistance of mulberry seedlings by improving their PSII function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many parts of the world the combined pressures of population growth and a drying climate have resulted in the proliferation of water focused policies which aim to increase the resilience of socio-ecological systems. Until recently, these policies often reflected surface water centric views of water resources, with groundwater receiving scant attention. In this paper we provide an introduction to the importance of groundwater for water-dependent socio-ecological systems and why it needs to be better incorporated into environmental water management policies. Specifically we highlight the key role of groundwater in buffering the environment and socio-economic activities against drought. We also outline some of the key challenges that face policy-makers and managers implementing groundwater management policies. These include dealing with groundwater resources that are spatially and temporally mismatched with surface water resources; transboundary governance issues; challenges between focusing on either preventative or restorative actions and most importantly limited knowledge about groundwater resources and groundwater–ecology relationships. We hope that the information in this paper will assist in the development of sustainable surface-groundwater water management policies, as well as highlight important challenges that should be considered before implementing groundwater related policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to study the association between weather shocks (droughts and floods) and agricultural market performance in Mozambique. To do so, we employ a dyadic regression analysis on monthly maize prices, transport costs, and spatial identification of markets as well as droughts and flooded areas. Our estimates show that, while a drought reduces price differences between markets, price dispersion increases during flood periods, an effect that is mainly driven by increases in transport costs. Finally, floods are found to affect price differences more if markets are closer to each other and if the road infrastructure quality is poor. An important implication of our results is that markets show some degree of efficiency during supply shock periods in Mozambique. However, spatial market integration continues to be insufficient, probably due to high transfer costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current drought and water scarcity management in England and Wales is reactive rather than proactive and the array of instruments and measures focuses primarily on what to do when in a drought, but less on how to prevent a drought or to plan ahead for a drought. This paper presents the results of a workshop that was held in late 2016 with stakeholders and researchers from UK drought and water scarcity management – the environment ministry (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), the Environment Agency, water companies, the economic regulator and water consultancies using the explorative scenario technique. The workshop offered the opportunity for unconstrained blue-sky thinking about drought management options based on the question What can happen? and it is useful in cases where there is fairly good knowledge regarding how the system works at present, but one is interested in exploring the consequences of alternative developments in drought management. The workshop developed four scenarios on the topic of resilient drought and water scarcity management in England and Wales in 2065: (1) 'Accepting decline', (2) 'Rising to the challenge', (3) 'Enjoying their luck' and (4) 'Passive acceptance'. The corresponding narratives are presented as are limits of the workshop but also potential uses of the scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 97% of the country is experiencing drought conditions. Due to gross water mismanagement and its damaging impact on the country, Iran faces the worst situation in water resources of any industrialized nation. Tens of thousands of villages have been deserted and most of the major urban centers have passed their limits to absorb new rural migrants. Some officials predict that in less than 25 years, 50 million Iranians would be displaced from their current homes because of the pressing ecological conditions. This is happening at the time that the gap between the grassroots and the state has widened and there is increasing dissatisfaction with governance plagued by corruption, nepotism, economic mismanagement, unaccountability and a foreign policy which has produced various regional and trans-regional adversaries. This paper evaluates the pressing ecological challenges in Iran and by conceptualizing political resilience it critically evaluates whether the Islamic Republic is prepared to face the devastating ecological crisis and its socio-economic consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water use demand has increased steadily in Canterbury, New Zealand, over the last 20 years resulting in insufficient water availability. Prevailing irrigation management strategies in Canterbury consider soil moisture measurement up to a certain extent with no regard to crop’s development stages and sensitivity to water shortage; therefore, lacking to address the spatial and temporal variability of crop’s irrigation demand. This paper proposes an agent-based model that can be used to prioritise irrigation allocation to different crops on a farm. The proposed agent-based model takes into account the crop’s drought sensitivity, growth stage, soil type and the crop coefficient value when allocating water. It prioritises the crops based on their water requirements and generates an irrigation plan based on the predetermined water reduction. Our preliminary results showed that using this agent-based model, a significant water saving can be achieved even when water reduction is in effect, without impacting on production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2014 and early 2015, scientific and online publications strongly focused on the multi-year drought over the western USA, showing its dramatic consequences for the US economy, environment and society. Considering such an extraordinary drought, many questions related to its beginning, duration, dynamics, intensity, genesis, extent and frequency became unanswered and even became controversial. How different is this current event from the extraordinary US drought of the 1930s and other intensive droughts? Can this drought be classified as a mega-drought? This paper attempts to answer most of these questions, by applying National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) global operational satellite system estimating vegetation health. It has been shown that the latest western US drought began in 2006 and has continued for nine full years. Since vegetation stress still continues in the first few months of 2015 (when this paper is written) coming into the 10th year, this drought was classified as a “mega-drought”. In 2006, when the drought began, vegetation was stressed in over 61% of the western USA. During 2012 and 2013 (time of the drought's intensification), this area increased to 71% and 67%, respectively. All 17 states of the western two-thirds of the USA were affected by this drought, especially South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana and Wyoming with up to 100% of the area affected by severe vegetation stress during 2012–2014. Compared to other catastrophic droughts of the past 100 years, the current drought during the worst year (2012), affected 71.3% of the western USA. This is comparable to the area affected by a catastrophic drought in 1934 (71.6%) and much higher than the droughts in 1956 (49%) and 1988 (31%). In terms of number of drought years, the other droughts in the western USA (1985–1986, 1988–1992, 1995–1996, and 2001–2003) were shorter and less intensive. Among western states, California was the most severely drought-affected, especially in 2014, when areas of stronger than moderate vegetation stress reached 70%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the relationship between state-driven developmental policies, considered as potential drivers of land degradation, and post-war territorial transformations in southern Italy, a disadvantaged Mediterranean region. Since the early 1950s, state-driven development policies aimed at balancing the socio-economic disparities between coastal and inland areas in southern Italy have sometimes impacted negatively on the quality of land. Three national and one European Union post-war policies have been considered in this study: (i) the Agrarian Reform promoting the realignment of land ownership and a new agricultural organization, (ii) theCassa per il Mezzogiornointervention stimulating economic development and reducing territorial unbalances, (iii) the measures for industrial recovery and settlement reconstruction after the 1980 earthquake in Campania and Basilicata regions and (iv) the European Common Agricultural Policy. The impact of these policies on soil resource depletion and land degradation in ecologically fragile, arid areas has been discussed using three case studies: Basilicata region, Sele river plain and Fortore river valley (both located in Campania region). The paper illustrates the multiple links between post-war economic policy and the downward environmental spiral observed in southern Italy as a contribution to the Mediterranean strategy for combating soil degradation, drought and desertification. It raises valid concerns about the negative implications of national and international political policies for land degradation in Italy which share resonance with similar developments in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses community-based adaptation strategies for droughts and floods in small watersheds in Kenya and the Central African Republic. Survey data on adaptation strategies and annual rainfall data in the watersheds were used to assess the occurrence of floods and droughts, and their impacts. In both areas, the main adaptation strategy for floods is temporary relocation. For droughts, changing livelihood activities was the main adaptation strategy, while relief-seeking applied to both droughts and floods. We recommend greater preparedness, capacity building, and the diversification of livelihoods as means of enhancing adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in 2006, western United States was affected by a 11-year strong mega-drought. Among 17 western states, California was the most severely drought-affected during 2012–2015, when an area of stronger than moderate vegetation stress reached 70%. This drought had considerable impact on California's environment, economy and society. Currently, drought in the USA is monitored by the US Drought Monitor (USDM), which estimates drought area and intensity on a large area (nearly 1000 km2). California produces more than 90% of US's fruits, vegetables, berries and nuts, which are grown on relatively small areas (200–500 acres, or 0.5–2 km2). Since most of these crops are irrigated, it is important to estimate crop conditions on the area comparable to the size of the planted crop. This paper demonstrates how the new 500-m vegetation health (VH) technology (VH-500), developed from data collected by the SNPP/VIIRS satellite launched in 2011, monitors this mega-drought in California, distinguishing drought-affected area with and without irrigation and estimating drought start/end, intensity, duration, impacts and recovery from 2015–2016 El Niño. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) may have impacted the city of Sijilmasa, an important trading centre situated in the Tafilalt oasis of southeastern Morocco during the eleventh century CE, as well as some adaptation strategies that may have been employed by the people of the region in response to these changing environmental conditions. Palaeoclimate proxy evidence indicates that the MCA ushered in a period of warmer and drier conditions throughout Morocco, and there are some indications in the archaeological and historical records that this may have caused some substantial disruptions in the Tafilalt oasis during the first half of the eleventh century CE. However, despite the continuation of this arid phase, the region experienced a period of rapid growth and economic development after the Almoravids conquered Sijilmasa in 1055 CE. This florescence during a period of frequent drought events may have been enabled in part by Almoravid efforts to alter the natural course of the region’s principal river, the Oued Ziz, so that it would flow directly through the middle of the Tafilalt oasis and thus make the region more drought-resistant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Artificial water storage, originated by the construction of dams, is essential for the sustainable health and welfare of civilizations since it supplies water for human consumption, irrigation and energy production. Furthermore, dam reservoirs are used for recreation, navigation and they provide safety in the downstream valleys against extreme flood events and droughts. All reservoirs are subjected to sedimentation which, without adequate prevention and mitigation counter-measures, threatens their sustainability. As well as the evident loss of storage capacity, the adequate and safe operation of water intakes and bottom outlets belonging to the vital outlet structures can be affected by the deposition of sediments in the reservoir. This Vision Paper first addresses the state-of-the-art and the main scientific advances in terms of prevention and mitigation measures against sedimentation in reservoirs. Then, the main research challenges, which result from the assessment of what are the remaining open questions, are pointed out. The emerging research methodologies to study sedimentation processes are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper details the results of research conducted with drought-affected farm families in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The study reveals the significant health and welfare stresses experienced by families and the lack of access to services and support. The research was conducted in three sites in rural and remote areas of NSW in 2003. Farm family members, service providers, and other community key informants were interviewed. The paper outlines ways that the social work profession can respond to significant natural disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opinion paper by Kreibich et al. provides interesting insights into the interplay between floods and droughts, which are often ignored. The structure of the paper is original and the findings of high interest. It may however be difficult to obtain the required data to pursue the research agenda in actual catchments. This discussion paper suggests various ways in which the linkages between floods and droughts can be explored even if recorded data of sufficient detail is not available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought, associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), can have considerable impact on tropical rainforests. Concern over drought, particularly given the possibility of an increase in its occurrence and intensity, has fostered a desire for an increased understanding of drought events and their impact to inform the development of a drought monitoring system. This paper investigates the use of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data in a drought monitoring system for the rainforests of Sabah, Borneo. These rainforests are dynamic with respect to their coupling with ENSO processes and in their biophysical properties, and such dynamism may have implications for how NOAA AVHRR data may be used. In particular, this paper explores the transferability of relationships between a drought indicator (rainfall) and the response of the rainforest, as measured by four NOAA AVHRR variables (middle infrared reflectance; VI3; Ts/VI3 and Ts/NDVI), under particular site conditions. It was found that both spatial variability in forest biophysical properties and geographical variability in drought impact had implications for the transferability of relationships developed under local conditions across Sabah rainforests within a drought monitoring system. Suggestions are presented for how NOAA AVHRR data could be used, with a new drought monitoring index – the Ts/VI3 – recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present paper was to improve understanding of the rainfall dynamics in Bas-Congo and Kinshasa provinces, in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The first objective of the study was achieved by analysing the spatial correlations of monthly, seasonal, annual and individual monthly rainfall amounts of Kinshasa and Bas-Congo. The second objective was achieved through investigating and quantifying the temporal trends and their spatial variations. The results demonstrated notably high average inter-station correlation of +0.63 for dry season series, followed by monthly rainfall series with an average inter-station correlation of +0.58. However, there was no station with a stable monthly rainfall regime, i.e. with mean precipitation concentration index lower than 10% (it varies between 14.2 and 21.9%). Moreover, Kinshasa experienced an increase of rainfall with an average annual rate of change of +4.59 mm/year for the period 1961–2006. The results will be helpful for efficient water resources management and for mitigating the adverse impacts of future extreme drought or flood occurrences.Editor M.C. Acreman Associate editor N. Verhoest [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The analysis and evaluation of agricultural drought risk can assist in reducing regional disasters and agricultural drought losses. Because of the uncertainties and incomplete agricultural drought information, this paper employed an information diffusion technology and information matrix to identify a drought disaster risk distribution and to quantify the relationship between the annual drought-affected rate and the grain production losses in China's major grain-producing areas. From the assessment results, provincial drought disaster risk spatial distribution maps for each major grain-producing area in China were obtained. These risk patterns showed that the probability of drought fell when the annual drought-covered rate and the annual drought-affected rate increased, and that the high risk areas were located primarily in China's northern and central provinces. These results can provide the basis for the development of effective drought mitigation strategies which would be able to inform possible drought situations and allow for easier decision-making on drought resistance strategies. The fuzzy relationship between the annual drought-affected rate and the drought-caused grain production losses provides vital information for the development of disaster compensation plans. Furthermore, the results of this study indicated that the proposed methods had superior detection stability and higher precision. We hope that by conducting such agricultural drought risk analysis, the results are able to provide the basis for the development of drought mitigation strategies to reduce future losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) was first established in 1986 as a regional integration organization addressing drought in the Greater Horn of Africa, i.e., Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. Since water resources in the region are transboundary, in 2012 the IGAD started developing a regional water policy and protocol. This paper shows how regional policy and legal frameworks may be established despite differences in socio-economic, climatic and other conditions, considering that while progress was made towards a legal framework for the Nile Basin, much work is to be done with regard to other shared water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Satellite observations of the spectral properties of vegetation can provide insights on crop conditions and yield, and, furthermore, can monitor the impact of droughts. In the case of rainfed crops grown for self-sufficiency, a drought can result in significant human suffering, highlighting the need to understand how droughts affect the landscape in such regions. This paper uses remote sensing to assess the phenomenological impacts of two isolated droughts, distinguishing the response of different vegetation covers in semiarid developing regions where rainfed agriculture is common. Using the standardized precipitation index, one normal and two dry years were selected (2000, 2005, and 2011, respectively). An original protocol for land use land cover (LULC) classification that combines climatic, topographic, and reflectance information from 18 Landsat ETM+ images was applied to subsequently distinguish drought effects in different classes through the selected years. Finally, two vegetation indices (normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and vegetation condition index (VCI)) were calculated to detect drought severity impacts over the different LULC classes. This approach was tested in Central Mexico and provided accurate information on the location and extent of areas affected by drought. The proposed approach can be used as a system for drought risk management in semi-arid developing regions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on drought risk assessment using satellite data. Methods of the extreme value theory (EVT) are applied for a time series of vegetation health index (VHI) derived from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites in order to provide drought hazard mapping. A Poisson-GP (generalized Pareto) model is applied for modelling VHI extreme values. The model allows estimation and mapping of return periods of different categories of droughts. An approach to economical risk assessment due to droughts is presented that relies on the following components: damage function assessment, crop yield assessment, and crop area estimation. The advantage of the proposed approach is that it allows quantification of drought hazard through the drought return period, damages, and ultimately drought risk using satellite data. The derived drought hazard map is integrated with high-resolution crop map to provide final estimates of risk. The proposed approach is implemented for quantitative assessment of drought risk for the Kyiv region in Ukraine. The derived map shows that risk is distributed non-uniformly over the region, thus allowing identification of areas with higher risk. Such a map would be of great benefit to both local authorities to take directed actions to reduce the risk and insurance companies operating in agriculture sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The estimation of drought at certain temporal and spatial scales is useful for research on climate change and global warming. Greece is often affected by droughts, which are widespread spatially and temporally due to the complex topography. Within the Greek territory, various complex microclimates are created, linked with the spatial variances in drought phenomena. In this paper an estimation of drought in the Sperchios River basin was conducted using the Aridity Index (AI). Additionally, a seasonal analysis of drought was performed. Meteorological data from the Hellenic National Meteorological Service (HNMS) were used as inputs for the AI equation. Spatial interpolation of AI for the Sperchios River basin was performed using a kriging method by the application of ArcGIS 9.3. In order to produce required input data, several models (EmPEst, RayMan) and techniques (linear regression, interpolation) were combined. Finally, the meteorological data series were randomly separated into two periods and AI was estimated for these sub-periods, in order to test the effectiveness of the drought index used. The results indicate that the conditions prevailing in the area are humid, mostly affected by increased rainfall occurring in the mountainous section of the basin. Broadly, the humid environment in the upstream of Sperchios River prevents drought occurring in the lowlands of Sperchios River valley. Nevertheless, some differentiation appeared during the summer period, to which special attention needs to be given in order to prevent drought conditions.Editor Z. W. Kundzewicz Associate editor not assigned [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Droughts occur frequently in China and their real-time monitoring and timely reporting are required for prevention and mitigation. This paper presents a method for developing an operational drought monitoring system for China. The method is based on various components such as Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data access, data processing, indices calculations, drought monitoring and analysis, and information dissemination. The system was tested by monitoring drought conditions in the early spring of 2009 in the Hai Basin of China. Results were compared with thein situdata-based indices. It was found that the system was capable of monitoring spatial variation in vegetation conditions attributed to droughts. The traditional meteorological drought index and yield data were collected to evaluate the system performance. A stronger relationship was found between the vegetation health index and the three-month standard precipitation index for the rainfed cropped areas. The relationship between the drought-area percentage and the winter wheat yield reduction percentage for 16 counties was stronger for the April–May period than for the February–March period. The drought monitoring system could explain about 60% of the variance in the winter wheat yields. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The objective of this paper is to evaluate trends and spatial patterns of drought incidence across the Omo- Ghibe River Basin using monthly rainfall data from eight stations for the period 1972-2007. It also aims to estimate the probability of drought episodes for a 100-year period. Drought indices were generated using the Standard Precipitation Index ( SPI) computed at 3-, 6-, 12- and 24-month time-steps for three intensity classes: moderate, severe and extreme drought events. The Mann- Kendall's trend test and Sen's slope estimator were employed to detect temporal changes. The results show complex spatial patterns on the frequency and magnitude of drought events across the study area for all timescales and intensity classes. However, the total number of drought events for the three intensity classes for all timescales were larger in the southern lowlands, where there exists a serious water scarcity for the rain-fed pastoral system, than in the northeastern part (around Wolaita Sodo area). In contrast to this, the longest and most extreme ( SPI < −4.0) drought events for all timescales were observed at Wolaita Sodo station. In a 100-year period one could expect 57-69 drought events with 3 months' duration, 19-34 events with 6 months' duration, 9-16 events with 12 months' duration and 5-9 events with 24 months' duration. The SPI values show negative rainfall anomalies in the 1980s while positive anomalies have occurred in the 1990s and 2000s, which implies tendency towards decreasing drought events. The Mann-Kendall's trend test for the 12- and 24-month timescales and for seasonal events also confirms this general trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]