Assessment of basin-wise future agricultural drought status across India under changing climate

Abstract

Abstract Most of the existing studies on meteorological drought suggest more intense and frequent drought events due to changing climate. However, basin-scale assessment of future agricultural drought is lacking due to many reasons. In this study, the intensity and frequency of future agricultural drought (characterized by the Standardized Soil Moisture Index, SSMI) for 226 sub-basins across India are analyzed, and vulnerable basins are identified. The prediction of the future agricultural drought status is achieved using the wavelet-based drought temporal consequence modeling of meteorological drought with the best performing bias-corrected Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) simulations, selected by Multi-Criteria Decision-Making frameworks. This study reveals a geographically contrasting change in future agricultural drought that indicates more intense agricultural drought in north, north-east, and central India as compared with south India. The area under drought is also expected to increase, and about 20 and 50% of the Indian mainland is expected to suffer from extreme (SSMI ≤ −2) and moderate (SSMI ≤ −1) agricultural drought conditions by the end of this century. Sub-basins lying in north and central India are expected to have a longer time under drought conditions. Thus, the findings of this study will be useful for future planning and preparedness against agricultural productivity.