Drought in Context: Rethinking Indices, Resilience, and Impacts

Summary

Drought Monitoring and Early Warning Systems (DEWSs) aim to mitigate drought impacts by focusing on natural indices, neglecting human dimensions like livelihood and food security. This approach simplifies the complex interplay between human activities and drought propagation, reducing DEWS' effectiveness. Two main reasons contribute to this oversight: the dynamic nature of anthropogenic drivers and the context-specific impacts on human populations. There is a need to rethink drought indices to incorporate human dimensions comprehensively. The thesis highlights the misalignment between monitoring physical drought drivers and impacts on water, food, and livelihood securities. It introduces methods to bridge gaps in conventional monitoring, prioritising local qualitative data. This reimagined approach aiming to address the "drought-monitoring gap" contributes to socio-hydrology, social-ecological systems, and drought management. Additionally, it critically examines the economic and political dimensions of drought monitoring, advocating for a more equitable and systemic approach.