Abstract
Drought indicators quantify information thereby making the significance of such information more readily apparent; simplify information about complex phenomena in order to improve communication and portray the relative and/or absolute change over the period of time in quantifying flow-on economic impacts from potential changes in agricultural production and ways of dealing with the situations such as groundwater abstraction, irrigation scheduling, and social costs. As the drought risk is not only due to meteorological but also due to socio-economic and technological changes, the ideal index should be derived from a biophysical model having strong linkages to social and economic outcomes. The main purpose of the drought index was to compare the present-day risk with that of the anticipated risk in 50 years’ time assuming that there will be 30% more droughts then than now. It is important to establish benchmarks or trigger points for making critical decisions and also be important to have an indication of recovery time — the amount of rainfall required to bring the drought to an end.
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Further Reading
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Nagarajan, R. (2009). Drought Indices. In: Drought Assessment. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2500-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2500-5_5
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