This document provides an overview of a regional drought assessment and mitigation project in Southwest Asia. It summarizes the project objectives to identify gaps in drought management and suggest improvements. It describes the development of a remote sensing-based drought monitoring system, hazard and vulnerability analyses, socioeconomic surveys, and an assessment of water harvesting technologies. The document outlines partners in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and discusses outputs including a drought monitoring website, software, and recommendations to shift from crisis to risk management through improved data, planning, and policies. It concludes by presenting the objectives and anticipated outputs of the regional workshop.

1. DROUGHT ASSESSMENT AND
MITIGATION IN SOUTHWEST ASIA:
project overview and workshop format
Vladimir Smakhtin
Presentation at the South West Asia Regional Drought Workshop
Colombo, Sri Lanka, 7 October 2004

2. STRUCTURE OF THE PRESENTATION
• Droughts- General
• Regional Drought Project at a glance
• What do we want from this Workshop

3. DROUGHTS - GENERAL
• Drought is a natural hazard and a normal part of climate for ALL
world regions
• Drought always stems from the lack of precipitation. When
precipitation deficiency continues for a season, year or longer –
water supplies become insufficient to meet human demands
• Drought is a temporary phenomenon. It develops slow and is difficult
to detect. Drought is a recurring event
• Drought is the most complex of all natural hazards. Perceptions on
Droughts differ

4. DROUGHTS IN SOUTH WEST ASIA
• Droughts never leave South-West Asia. They just migrate from one
province, State or District to another. Drought impacts are non-
structural and spread over large areas.
• The ability of governments in the region and international agencies
to deal and cope up with droughts remains to be constrained by the
absence of reliable data and tools, information networks and
institutional capacities.
• But drought impacts in the region can be reduced through improved
management and regional cooperation

5. REGIONAL DROUGHT PROJECT
Objectives:
To identify existing technical,
institutional and policy gaps in
drought management in
southwest Asia (west India,
Pakistan and Afghanistan)
To suggest ways to improve
drought mitigation efforts in the
short and long-term
Sponsored by:
US Department of State, Regional
Environment Office for South Asia

6. DROUGHT CRISIS MANAGEMENT
VERSUS DROUGHT RISK MANAGEMENT
• Post-impact interventions—drought relief (emergency
assistance). Reactive approach. Often referred to as “crisis
management”.
• Preparedness planning and mitigation. Often referred to as
“risk management”. Pro-active. Actions are planned in advance

7. APPROACH
• The State of the Art of drought management in the region may be
assessed in terms of how well different countries are 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
• The approach therefore is to identify problems/issues in the components
above and to suggest ways to fill the identified gaps

8. THE MATRIX OF PROJECT COMPONENTS
Component Geographical focus and/or scale
Developing a remote The entire southwest Asia Region, including west India, Pakistan and
sensing based Afghanistan
regional drought
monitoring system
Drought hazard India: Rajasthan and Pakistan: Baluchistan Afghanistan: national
analysis Gujarat states and Sindh provinces
Socio-economic India: Rajasthan Pakistan: Baluchistan Afghanistan: Ghor,
surveys of rural and Sindh provinces Badhgis Helmand and
population Kandahar provinces
Analysis of drought- India: national and Pakistan: national Afghanistan: national
related institutions Rajasthan
and policies
Assessment of the India: Rajasthan Pakistan: Baluchistan Afghanistan: national
potential of water and Sindh provinces
harvesting
technologies to
withstand droughts

9. PARTNERS
• In India:
• Indian Council for Agricultural Research
(ICAR), Delhi.
• Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Jaipur
• Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI),
Jodhpur
• Sewa Mandir – an NGO based in Udaipur
• Indian Meteorology Department (IMD), Pune
• In Pakistan:
• Pakistan Agricultural Research Council,
Islamabad
• Water Resources Research Institute,
Islamabad
• Faisalabad Agricultural University, Faisalabad
• Peshawar Agricultural University, Peshawar
• Arid Zone Research Institute (AZRI), Quetta
• Pakistan Meteorological Department,
Islamabad
KU
• In Afghanistan:
• Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Kabul-Herat
• Kabul University, Faculty of Agriculture,
Kabul
• Ministry of Irrigation, Water and Environment,
Kabul
• FAO, Afghanistan

10. ONLINE DROUGHT MONITORING SYSTEM (DMS)
• DMS is accessible on-line (http://dms.iwmi.org)
• DMS allows the condition of ground vegetation to be monitored in time and space
• DMS is based on high-resolution remote sensing data (0.5 by 0.5 km). This allows drought
conditions to be monitored up to the level of a tehsil or a village
• New data may be uploaded every 8 or 16 days, which makes it a “near real time” system
Click on the Image to
examine drought
conditions in Your Area
of Interest

11. ONLINE DROUGHT MONITORING SYSTEM (DMS)
• DMS is accessible on-line (http://dms.iwmi.org)
• DMS allows the condition of ground vegetation to be monitored in time and space
• DMS is based on high-resolution remote sensing data (0.5 by 0.5 km). This allows drought
conditions to be monitored up to the level of a tehsil or a village
• New data may be uploaded every 8 or 16 days, which makes it a “near real time” system
Drought free zone
Mild Drought zone
Spatial view Severe Drought zone
Time Series
of a District
graph for a
with
District or
vegetation
Specific
index
location

12. DROUGHT HAZARD MAPPING
Drought hazard mapping has direct implications for drought planning and emergency
assistance
District-wise Distribution of Moderate, Severe & Extreme Drought Years in Gujarat
(Similar analyses has been carried out for other States and Countries)
(one bar unit corresponds to one drought year)

13. DROUGHT ASSESSMENT SOFTWARE
Main screen Drought indices calculation screen
•Software allows a variety of drought characteristics
to be calculated, displayed, mapped
•It is part of a much larger comprehensive software
package for multiple water resources analyses,
which could be useful in its own capacity of drought indices
Time series plots of drought characteristics Mapping
•Software targets meteorological departments,
water authorities, water research institutions

14. EVALUATING POTENTIAL FOR WATER HARVESTING
• Review of traditional and modern
technologies for water harvesting,
their current spread and
performance in different regions
• Quantification of the potential that
such methods have to withstand
droughts of different extremity
• Developing an Internet bank of
information on water harvesting
measures, traditional and novel
irrigation systems and techniques
– with illustration of how they
operate, photos etc

15. EVALUATING POTENTIAL FOR WATER HARVESTING
• Review of traditional and modern
technologies for water harvesting,
their current spread and
performance in different regions
• Quantification of the potential that
such methods have to withstand
droughts of different extremity
• Developing an Internet bank of
information on water harvesting
measures, traditional and novel
irrigation systems and techniques
– with illustration of how they
operate, photos etc

16. EVALUATING DROUGHT POLICIES AND INSTITUTIONS
The following general questions apply:
• Do the relevant policies and institutions exist ?
• If “yes” - do they establish operating guidelines for
drought management ?
• Do they reflect regional differences in drought
characteristics, vulnerability, and impact ?
• Are they linked with national policies on water resources
management, disaster management ?
• Do they promote principles of drought preparedness by
encouraging adoption of
– Reliable forecasts and early warning systems
– Actions and programs that reduce anticipated drought impacts
– Coordinated emergency response programs that ensure timely
and targeted relief during droughts ?

17. SURVEYS OF DROUGHT COPING MEASURES OF
RURAL POPULATION
• 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)

18. PROJECT WEB SITE
http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/droughtassessment/index.asp
• content:
– General information about droughts
– Overview of the Project activities
– Project Publications
– Links to Partner web sites and other drought related web sites
– Databases of regional literature on droughts and organizations involved in
drought research and management
– Drought software description
– Access to Regional Drought Monitoring system
– Information about our sponsors
– More…

19. A FEW KEY MESSAGES
• Relief - emergency assistance – dominates the current anti-drought
actions in the region. A paradigm shift towards drought
preparedness is necessary
• Without improved quantification of drought hazard in different parts
of the region and effective early warning systems drought
preparedness may not be achieved. Both are impossible without
improved data availability and access
• Even if drought hazard is fully understood and well predicted in
advance, but little is done about decreasing vulnerability of
population and economic sectors to it – drought impacts will remain
significant

20. RECOMMENDATIONS AND THE WAY FORWARD
• Develop common understanding of a drought
• Natural hazard with far reaching economic and social consequences
• Normal part of climate,
• Temporary and recurring event
• Contributes to permanently declining overall water supplies
• Improve regional drought monitoring and early warning systems (long-term).
• Integrate RS data into such systems: it has a significant potential for
drought monitoring, which is not fully utilized at present
• Ensure timely acquisition and delivery of climate data: RS will not do the
job alone
• Integrate weather forecast into such systems
• Develop well-targeted information messages
• Develop mechanisms for delivery of warnings (TV, Internet)
• Improve data availability and access (short- and long-term)
• Rainfall data (at least) should not be classified and should be free
• Integrate data collected by different agencies into one centralized source in
each country
• Improve storage of already collected data to avoid data losses
• Improve data collection networks
• Illustrate the economic value of hydrometeorological data

21. RECOMMENDATIONS AND WAY FORWARD
• Plan in advance (long-term) - Do it during normal periods.
• Develop / improve drought hazard (climate) and drought vulnerability
(population, sectors) maps
• Plan measures, institutional structure, capacity building and logistics for
relief according to vulnerability level of each region.
• Develop Relief Master Plan. Locate relief material banks in vulnerable
regions to ensure quicker response
• Develop crop yield and/or income insurance schemes.
• Apply innovative technologies for water harvesting. Is artificial recharge
• a solution for water scarce areas?
• Decrease the dependency of population on land-based activities
• Set up an example project for development of a Drought Plan- in one
country or State
• Ensure Policy support for drought preparedness and planning
• Set Regional drought preparedness network (short-term)
• Establishing regional drought information center
• Regular regional conference on Droughts
• South Asia Drought Encyclopedia / Drought Management Handbook

22. THE OBJECTIVES OF THE WORKSHOP
• To present and discuss some preliminary results /outputs
of the Project
• To inform participants about other relevant initiatives
and practices in drought assessment and mitigation – in
the region and internationally
• To discuss the potential for and the way forward
in drought mitigation in the region

23. ANTICIPATED OUTPUTS OF THE WORKSHOP
• The list of priority components for future anti-drought
work in the region with recommendations on related
benchmarks and targets
• Workshop proceedings, which will document the
discussions held and presentations made
• Workshop results will be synthezised, integrated with
other project outputs and made broadly available

24. THANK YOU !
Drought Relief Time – Coffee Break