Evolution of multivariate drought hazard, vulnerability and risk in Indiaunder climate change

Changes in climate and socio-economic conditions pose amajor threat to water security, particularly in the densely populated,agriculture-dependent and rapidly developing country of India. Therefore,for cogent mitigation and adaptation planning, it is important to assess thefuture evolution of drought hazard, vulnerability and risk. Earlier studies havedemonstrated projected drought risk over India on the basis of frequencyanalysis and/or hazard assessment alone. This study investigates andevaluates the change in projected drought risk under future climatic andsocio-economic conditions by combining drought hazard and vulnerabilityprojections at a country-wide scale. A multivariate standardized droughtindex (MSDI) accounting for concurrent deficits in precipitation and soilmoisture is chosen to quantify droughts. Drought vulnerability assessment iscarried out combining exposure, adaptive capacity and sensitivityindicators, using a robust multi-criteria decision-making method called theTechnique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS).In the worst-case scenario for drought hazard (RCP2.6-Far future), there isa projected decrease in the area under high or very high drought hazardclasses in the country by approximately 7 %. Further, the worst-casescenario for drought vulnerability (RCP6.0-SSP2-Near future) shows a 33 %rise in the areal extent of high or very high drought vulnerability classes.The western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and western Rajasthan regions are found to be highrisk under all scenarios. Bivariate choropleth analysis shows that theprojected drought risk is majorly driven by changes in drought vulnerabilityattributable to societal developments rather than changes in drought hazardresulting from climatic conditions. The present study can aid policy makers,administrators and drought managers in developing decision support systemsfor efficient drought management.