DROUGHT -PRONE AREA DEVELOPMENT

Published on 23 Feb 2025

16% of India’s total area is drought prone and annually about 50 million people in the country are exposed to the crisis of drought. Most of drought prone areas lie in the arid (19.6%), semi-arid (37%) and sub-humid (21%) areas of the country that occupy 77.6% of its total land area of 329 million hectares.

Challenges faced by Drought prone regions

• Water Scarcity: Reduced rainfall and prolonged dry periods lead to depletion of water sources like rivers, lakes, and aquifers. This scarcity impacts everything from drinking water availability to crop irrigation.

• Food Insecurity: With water scarcity comes decreased agricultural output. Crops fail, livestock struggle to find food and water, leading to food shortages and malnutrition. 

• Environmental Degradation: Droughts can exacerbate desertification, soil erosion, and dust storms. These events further reduce land productivity and contribute to a vicious cycle of environmental decline.

• Economic Strain: Droughts cripple the agricultural sector, the backbone of many drought-prone areas. This leads to job losses, income decline, and economic hardship.

• Public Health Issues: Limited access to clean water increases the risk of waterborne diseases. It can also lead to malnutrition and weakening of immune system.

• Social Disruption: Droughts can trigger social unrest and displacement. People may be forced to migrate in search of water and food, putting pressure on resources in other areas.

• Climate Change: A warming climate is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of droughts. This adds another layer of complexity to the challenges faced by drought-prone regions.

Key Strategies to be adopted in drought prone areas

• Water Management: Capture and conserve water through large dams, community tanks, and efficient irrigation practices.

• Harvest Rain: Large dams, community tanks, rooftop systems to store monsoon bounty (e.g., Rajasthan's rainwater harvesting success story).

• Save Every Drop: Promote drip irrigation, precision agriculture for efficient water use (e.g., Maharashtra's drip irrigation subsidies).

• Sustainable Agriculture: Grow drought-resistant crops and improve soil health for long-term resilience.

• Drought-Smart Choices: Cultivate millets, pulses - less water, food security, crop diversification (e.g., International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT's) work on drought-resistant chickpeas).

• Healthy Soil, Healthy Crops: Promote cover cropping, mulching, no-till farming to improve soil moisture and fertility (e.g., Vermicomposting success in Indian states).

• Community Resilience: Empower communities to manage watersheds and adopt climate-smart farming techniques.

• Protect the Source: Watershed management with local communities (afforestation, check dams) for better water infiltration (e.g., Arvari River rejuvenation project in Haryana).

• Climate-Smart Farming: Utilize weather forecasts, adopt drought-tolerant seeds, and adjust irrigation based on seasonal predictions (e.g., mobile apps providing real-time weather information).

• Livelihood Diversification: Reduce dependence on agriculture by promoting alternative income sources.

• Beyond Agriculture: Promote rural tourism, handicrafts, small businesses to reduce dependence on farming (e.g., handloom and handicraft industries in drought-prone regions).

• Utilization of Technology: Predict and assess droughts proactively using advanced monitoring systems.

• Early Warning Systems: Utilize satellite data and weather forecasts to predict and assess droughts (e.g., Indian Institute of Remote Sensing's drought monitoring).

• Location-Specific Drought Monitoring: Implement remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that track drought. (e.g.,The Andhra Pradesh government's use of GIS technology )

Tags:
Geography

Keywords:
DROUGHT -PRONE AREA DEVELOPMENT Challenges faced by Drought prone regions Key Strategies to be adopted in drought prone areas

Syllabus:
General Studies Paper 1