Dynamics Of Drought And Present Status Of Drought Prediction-An Overview

We suffer due to almost all types of natural hazards. Yet, there is no permanent solution to these disaster related negative impacts. One can understand our limitations in addressing earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches and unusual cloud bursts. Many wonder why do we continue to suffer year after year due to floods and droughts, when there is vast data available about location and magnitude of these two disasters. Even after significant technological developments in locating drought prone locations and area specific dynamics of droughts through remote sensing our efforts to lessen the impact due to droughts continue to persist due to various factors including lack of co-ordination between experts and suffering common man and farmers.Occurrence of Droughts and floods in one part of the country or the other has become a regular feature, affecting almost entire population of our country directly or indirectly. 2017 Southwest monsoon has created havoc in the north eastern states, especially Assam. Even though experts predict good rains in 2017, the prolonged dry spells followed by good showers is hurting the farmer in ensuring proper sowing operations. Monsoon aberrations and absence of a set pattern of rains has enhanced percentage of occurrence of agriculture drought. As per standard definition a drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions that results in water-related problems. Precipitation (rain or snow) falls in uneven patterns across the country leading to indecision regarding sowing operations. The resultant setbacks due to insufficient water availability make farming community socio-economically vulnerable and distraught. This set back reflects in escalation of food prices and over all despondency in the part of rural and urban labour and water crisis resultant setbacks to middle class and at places even upper middle and rich. Drought can have many devastating effects on communities and the surrounding environment. The amount of devastation depends on the strength of the drought and the length of time an area is considered to be in drought conditions. Drought has greater impacts on poorer communities than on more prosperous communities who have better opportunities to bring in resources from other areas. Drought, however, can be very harsh at times on any type of community, including the rich. Drought prediction at least couple of months before can help agricultural operations significantly. In spite of noteworthy scientific studies involving remote sensing data and on land hydrological parameters we are yet to master the art of proper forecasting. However, in the recent past reasonable success has been achieved. All the details pertaining to basics and state of the art drought forecasting are detailed in this write up, hoping details at one place can help focused future research studies.