Reducing Societal Vulnerability to Drought:A Methodology

2005

JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 2000

ABSTRACT: Severe drought is a recurring problem for the United States, as illustrated by widespread economic, social, and environmental impacts. Recent drought episodes and the widespread drought conditions in 1996, 1998, and 1999 emphasized this vulnerability and the need for a more proactive, risk management approach to drought management that would place greater emphasis on preparedness planning and mitigation actions. Drought planning has become a principal tool of states and other levels of government to improve their response to droughts. For example, since 1982, the number of states with drought plans has increased from 3 to 29. Many local governments have also adopted drought or water shortage plans. Unfortunately, most state drought plans were established during the 1980s and early 1990s and emphasize emergency response or crisis management rather than risk management. This paper presents a substantive revision of a 10‐step drought planning process that has been applied wid...

Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 2000

Severe drought is a recurring problem for the United States, as illustrated by widespread economic, social, and environmental impacts. Recent drought episodes and the widespread drought conditions in 1996, 1998, and 1999 emphasized this vulnerability and the need for a more proactive, risk management approach to drought management that would place greater emphasis on preparedness planning and mitigation actions. Drought planning has become a principal tool of states and other levels of government to improve their response to droughts. For example, since 1982, the number of states with drought plans has increased from 3 to 29. Many local governments have also adopted drought or water shortage plans. Unfortunately, most state drought plans were established during the 1980s and early 1990s and emphasize emergency response or crisis management rather than risk management. This paper presents a substantive revision of a 10-step drought planning process that has been applied widely in the United States and elsewhere. The revised planning process places more weight on risk assessment and the development and implementation of mitigation actions and programs. The goal of this paper is to encourage states to adopt this planning process in the revision of existing drought plans or, for states without plans, in the development of new plans.

Natural Hazards, 1996

Drought is a normal, recurrent feature of climate that affects virtually all countries to some degree. The number of drought-induced natural disasters has grown significantly since the 1960s, largely as a result of increasing vulnerability to extended periods of precipitation deficiency rather than because of an increase in the frequency of meteorological droughts. This increase in droughtinduced natural disasters has resulted in a considerable growth of interest in drought mitigation and preparedness worldwide. The purpose of a national preparedness plan is to reduce societal vulnerability to drought through the adoption of preventive, anticipatory policies and programs. This paper describes a ten-step planning process that nations can follow to develop a drought preparedness plan. This process, originally developed in 1987, has been the basis of discussions at training seminars on drought preparedness for developing nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It has also been adopted, with appropriate modifications, by state or provincial governments and by municipalities. The process is intended to be flexible so that governments can add, delete, or modify the suggested steps, as necessary.

2014

There is increasing concern worldwide about the ineffectiveness of current drought management practices that are largely based on crisis management. These practices are reactive and, therefore, only treat the symptoms (impacts) of drought rather than the underlying causes for the vulnerabilities associated with impacts. Through the adoption of national drought policies that are focused on risk reduction and complemented by drought mitigation or preparedness plans at various levels of government, the coping capacity of nations to manage droughts can be improved. The time for adopting an approach that emphasizes drought risk reduction is now, given the spiraling impacts of droughts in an ever-increasing number of sectors and the current and projected trends for the increased frequency, severity and duration of drought events in association with a changing climate. This paper discusses the underlying concepts of drought, the principles and objectives of national drought policies and a ...

2011

Drought is a naturally occurring event that is associated with virtually all climatic regions. Given its slow onset and other characteristics, including its spatial dimensions and duration, impacts are difficult to assess and have been, historically, poorly documented. These impacts are strongly influenced by a society’s exposure to the hazard and the vulnerability of that society to the hazard. This vulnerability is continually changing in response to increasing population, land use changes, technology, government policies, and many other factors. Therefore, each drought event is superimposed on a society with differing vulnerabilities than existed when the previous drought event occurred. Drought impacts are increasing worldwide, both as a result of these changing vulnerabilities and, perhaps, because of an increase in the frequency, severity, and duration of drought events. To lessen societal vulnerability, it is imperative for nations to move away from the crisis management appr...

2000

Planning for Drought, 2019

During the twentieth century, governments have typically responded to drought by providing emergency, short-term, and long-term assistance to distressed areas. Emergency and short-term assistance programs are often reactive, a kind of "band-aid" approach to more serious land and water management problems (Rosenberg, 1980; Hamer, 1985; Wilhite, et al., 1986). Actions of this type have long been criticized as inefficient and ineffective by the scientific community and government officials, as well as by recipients of relief. Long-term assistance programs are far fewer in number, but they are proactive. They attempt to lessen a region's vulnerability to drought through improved management and planning. The vulnerability of developed and developing societies to drought has been reemphasized as a result of recent drought occurrences in Africa, Australia, Brazil, China, and the United States. These droughts have demonstrated the need for additional planning to help mitigate the possible worst effects of future droughts. The need for national drought planning exists in all drought-prone regions, as noted in the recent memorandum from the World Meteorological Organization (1986). Case studies of recent drought episodes, impacts, and governmental response in Botswana, northeast Brazil, and India are included in this section of the proceedings. The purpose of this paper is to briefly review and evaluate the policies adopted by governments in response to recent episodes of severe drought. The mid-1970s droughts in the United States and Canada and the more recent droughts of the early 1980s in Australia and South Africa will be used as examples of prior drought mitigation efforts. Furthermore, recommendations will be made on how governments can improve drought mitigation efforts. The concept of drought policy and planning will be discussed in this context.

1993