Long-term (1870–2018) drought reconstruction in context of surface water security in India

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.124228

Journal of Hydrology

Volume 580, January 2020, 124228

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.124228 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Identified top five most severe meteorological and hydrological droughts in India during 1870–2018.
•
All the deadly droughts were linked with the positive phase of ENSO.
•
2015–2018 drought was the longest duration in the entire record (1870–2018) but was not among the most severe droughts.
•
Droughts and rapidly declining groundwater together can pose serious challenge to ensure fresh water security in India.

Abstract

Droughts in India affect food production, gross domestic product (GDP), livelihood, and socio-economic condition of a large population associated with agriculture. Recent drought (2015–2018) caused groundwater depletion and affected about one-fourth of the Indian population. However, it remains unclear if the drought of 2015–2018 was among the most severe droughts that occurred in India. Here we use a long-term (1870–2018) data to identify the top five (“deadly”) meteorological/hydrological droughts based on overall severity score in the last century and half period. Out of a total of 18 meteorological droughts, the deadly droughts occurred in 1899, 1876, 2000, 1918, and 1965. Similarly, the deadly hydrological droughts occurred in 1899, 2000, 1876, 1965, and 1918 during 1870–2018. All the five deadly droughts were associated with the positive phase of El Nino Southern Oscillations (ENSO). Results show that the relationship between ENSO and monsoon (June to September) precipitation in India has weakened while the role of Indian and Atlantic Oceans have strengthened during the recent decades. Notwithstanding the longest (41 months) duration, the 2015–2018 drought did not feature among the deadly droughts. The 2015–2018 drought affected surface (reservoir storage) and groundwater availability in both southern and northern parts of India and was linked to El-Nino and Indian Ocean Dipole. Droughts and rapidly declining groundwater together can pose serious challenges to water security in India.

Introduction

Droughts pose remarkable challenges on the socio-economic aspects of a large population in India. The vulnerability of the Indian population to droughts is high as a large fraction of the population is associated with agriculture. More than 80% of total annual precipitation occurs in India during the monsoon (June to September) season. The year-to-year variability of the summer monsoon precipitation is linked with the large-scale climate factors, especially sea surface temperature (SST) conditions in the Pacific and Indian Oceans (Kumar, 1999, Kumar, 2003, Mishra et al., 2012, Roxy et al., 2015). India has a long history of major droughts that have had lasting impacts on water resources, agriculture, gross domestic product, and rural livelihood (Bhalme and Mooley, 1980, Mishra and Singh, 2010, Mooley and Parthasarathy, 1983, Mooley and Pant, 1981). Some of the historic droughts caused famines in India that resulted in millions of deaths (Mishra et al., 2019). The recent drought of 2015 affected crop production and water availability in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Maharashtra region (Mishra et al., 2016, Prakash, 2018). The 2015–2016 drought affected a large part of south India with lower reservoir storage and hydropower production. Moreover, about 330 million people in ten states were affected by the 2015–2016 drought (UNICEF, 2016). Furthermore, the 2015–16 drought caused a significant depletion in groundwater in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and southern states of India (UNICEF, 2016).

Considering the profound impacts of the recent droughts in India, it is essential to compare the recent droughts with the most severe droughts that occurred in the past. Mishra et al. (2019) reconstructed soil moisture droughts in India during 1870–2018 to evaluate the role of agricultural droughts in the famines that caused millions of deaths during the British period. Long-term meteorological and hydrological droughts affect surface and groundwater resources, which in turn hamper crop production leading to food insecurity (Funk et al., 2008). Recent studies reported the influence of drought on groundwater variability in India (Panda et al., 2007). However, most of the previous studies (Bhalme and Mooley, 1980, De et al., 2005, Gregory, 1989, Mallya et al., 2015, Mooley and Parthasarathy, 1983, Thober et al., 2015, Mooley and Pant, 1981) are based on meteorological droughts primarily during the monsoon season and do not consider hydrological droughts in the monsoon season and water year (June to May).

Here we use the long-term data to reconstruct the most severe (“deadly”) meteorological and hydrological droughts during the monsoon season and water year in India during the period of 1870–2018. Understanding of the deadly meteorological and hydrological droughts in India enables to evaluate if the recent drought (2015–2018) is among the deadly droughts that occurred in India during 1870–2018. Moreover, the record of the major droughts in India during 1870–2018 can be useful to compare the severity of the future droughts that are likely to be driven by both monsoon season precipitation deficit and anthropogenic warming (Mishra and Singh, 2010, Dai, 2011, Diffenbaugh et al., 2015, Mukherjee et al., 2018). Since long-term droughts have implications for surface and groundwater storage, we use reservoir storage and groundwater data to evaluate the impacts of the recent drought on surface and groundwater availability in India. Here, we address three objectives: i) to reconstruct major meteorological and hydrological droughts in India during 1870–2018 and to compare the 2015–2018 drought against the most severe historical droughts, (ii) to identify the linkage between seas surface temperature variability with the major droughts in India, and (iii) to evaluate the impact of the recent drought (2015–2018) on surface and groundwater storage.

Section snippets

Data

We obtained 0.5° gridded daily precipitation, maximum and minimum temperatures from Mishra et al. (2019). Mishra et al. (2019) extended precipitation data for 1870–1900. The precipitation data for the 1901–2018 period was obtained from the India Meteorological Department (IMD, Pai et al. (2014)). As mentioned in Mishra et al. (2019), the station data for precipitation was obtained for the period of 1870–1900 from IMD, which was carefully checked for quality, inconsistency, and missing data. The

Major Meteorological Droughts, 1870–2018

We identified the spells of meteorological (12-month SPI) and hydrological (12-month SRI) droughts during 1870–2018 (Fig. 1). Using all-India averaged SPI/SRI, we selected only those drought spells that lasted more than six months and had maximum intensity higher than −1.6, which is used as a threshold to categorize an “extreme” drought (Svoboda et al., 2002). We focused on a 12-month time scale for meteorological and hydrological droughts to avoid the influence of seasonality in the monsoon

Discussion

We reconstructed meteorological and hydrological droughts in India for 1870–2018. The analysis points towards the three major findings: First, there have been a number of meteorological (total 18) and hydrological (total 16) drought spells in India that lasted for more than six months and with peak intensity higher than −1.6. However, based on the overall severity score, the five deadly meteorological droughts occurred in 1899, 1876, 2000, 1918, and 1965. On the other hand, the five deadliest

Conclusions

Based on our findings the following conclusions can be made:

1.
We reconstructed meteorological and hydrological droughts in India for 1870–2018 period. Based on our selection criterion, we identified 18 meteorological and 16 hydrological droughts. The five deadly meteorological droughts occurred in 1899, 1876, 2000, 1918, and 1965 while the five major hydrological droughts occurred in 1899, 2000, 1876, 1965, and 1918. The meteorological and hydrological drought of 1899 was the most severe in the

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

The data availability from India Meteorological Department (www.imd.gov) is greatly acknowledged. All the datasets used in this study are freely available and can be obtained from: www.imd.gov, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/marineocean-data/extended-reconstructed-sea-surface-temperature-ersst-v5, and https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/nino-sst-indices-nino-12-3-34-4-oni-and-tni.

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Research papersLong-term (1870–2018) drought reconstruction in context of surface water security in India

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Data

Major Meteorological Droughts, 1870–2018

Discussion

Conclusions

Declaration of Competing Interest

Acknowledgments

Adv. Water Resour.

Relative contribution of monsoon precipitation and pumping to changes in groundwater storage in India

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Mon. Weather Rev.

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Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc.

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Drought under global warming: a review

Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Chang

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Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.

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Research papers
Long-term (1870–2018) drought reconstruction in context of surface water security in India