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Risk of Drought Impact for Agriculture (RDrI-Agri)

Droughts affect millions of people in the world each year and have long-lasting socioeconomic impacts. They can occur over most parts of the world, even in wet and humid regions, and can profoundly impact agriculture, basic household welfare, tourism, ecosystems and the services they provide. The Risk of Drought Impact for Agriculture (RDrI-Agri) is a categorized risk index, indicating the probability of having impacts from a drought, with particular focus on vegetation. Higher risk (in red) means that the areas affected will be the most likely to report impacts due to droughts. It is updated every ten days.

Carrão, H., G. Naumann and P. Barbosa. 2016. Mapping global patterns of drought risk: An empirical framework based on sub-national estimates of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. Global Environmental Change, 39: 108-124. www.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.04.012

Last full 10-day period

*The maps of the RDrI-Agri indicator can be used as a proxy for the presence of potential impacts due to ongoing droughts. Due to the complexity of drought propagation through the hydrological cycle and different socio-economic sectors, as well as cascading effects, these impacts may well be observed much later. *The proposed model of drought risk is relative to the sample of input geographic regions, and depends on the joint statistical distribution of the respective indicators of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. Therefore, the proposed scale of risk is not a measure of absolute losses or actual damage to human health or the environment, but is more suitable for ranking and comparison of the input geographic regions. *The proposed approach is fully data-driven, and final results can be biased by uncertainties of the input indicators and propagation errors from their combination and aggregation. *Most of the vulnerability indicators are only at the country level, and variations within the country may not be identified.


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