SAARC Workshop on Drought Risk Management in South Asia

Organised by SAARC Disaster Management Centre, New Delhi In collaboration with Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority SAARC Workshop on Landslide Risk Management in South Asia | 177 | SAARC Workshop on Landslide Risk Management in South Asia Contents Messages (v) Drought Risk Management in South Asia 1 SAARC Disaster Management Centre, New Delhi Drought Impacts and Potential for their Mitigation in Southern and Western Afghanistan 27 Kamal Bhattacharyya, Pir Mohammad Azizi, Sayed Sharif Shobair and Mohammad Yasin Mohsini Drought and Human Suffering in Afghanistan 44 Abdul Khabir ALIM and Sayed Sharif SHOBAIR Drought Management Scenarios in Bangladesh 50 Dr. Abu Wali Raghib Hassan and Md. Mezbanur Rahman Current Status on Drought Risk Management in India 63 Atanu Purkayastha & P.J. Soundararajan Monitoring and Early Warning of Drought in India 78 Jayanta Sarkar Agricultural Drought Management in India 88 B. Venkateswarlu Rainfall Characteristics and its Distribution in Maldives 105 Ahmed Rasheed Drought Risk Management in Nepal 111 Hem Raj Regmi Drought Mitigation in Pakistan: Current Status and Options for Future Strategies 120 Shahid Ahmad, Zahid Hussain, Asaf Sarwar Qureshi, Rashida Majeed and Mohammad Saleem Drought Management in Sri Lanka 164 Lalani Imbulana | 179 | 8 August 2010 Historically disaster management in South Asia began with management of droughts. Successive droughts and the resultant famines that killed millions impelled the colonial administration to develop famine codes that became the basis of relief manuals in post independent era. Large scale improvement of agriculture and irrigation in many areas and diversification of economy in the recent decades have blunted the impact of drought at the macro level, but periodic drought still remains the most creeping and devastating disaster which affects millions of rural communities of South Asia. The climate change and its impact on water and agriculture are bound to further worsen the drought situation of the sub-continent in the years and decades to come. Every country of South Asia has centuries of experience of dealing with droughts. Most of these experiences have not been documented and have almost gone into oblivion. What is even more unfortunate is that each country has so far largely worked in isolation without much motivation to look beyond to find out what their neighbours have been doing, whether there are good practices that are worthy of emulation and whether there areas of common concern that can be better addressed by regional collaboration. Surely time has come to break this logjam and establish channels and networks of communication among scientists, policy makers and practitioners in the countries of the region to interact and share knowledge and good practices, develop regional early warning systems of drought, organize trainings and workshops and establish joint regional projects of drought mitigation and preparedness that will be of mutual benefit to the countries and communities of the region. The SAARC Workshop on Drought Risk Management organised by the SAARC Disaster Management Centre New Delhi, in collaboration with the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority on 8-9 August 2010 in Kabul is probably the first ever attempt to hold a regional consultation on drought risk management in South Asia. The workshop has the challenging task of developing the blue print of a commonly agreed road map for regional cooperation on drought risk management on the basis of which projects of regional collaboration for short, medium and long term period shall be prepared. Surely this would be a historic opportunity to understand the challenges and perspectives of each country, assess the mutual strength and weaknesses, and develop a framework for working together to address issues of drought management that are regional in nature and would that would benefit the people of the entire region. (P.G.Dhar Chakrabarti) SAARC Workshop on Drought Risk Management in South Asia Drought Risk Management in South Asia SAARC Disaster Management Centre, New Delhi Drought – A Global Perspective Drought is one of the major threats among natural hazards to people's livelihoods and socio-economic development. Drought tends to occur less frequently than other hazards; however, when it does occur, it gener- ally affects a broad region for seasons or years at a time. As per the global database of disasters maintained by the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters, Leuven drought accounted for only 4.2% of the total natural disaster events (428 out of 10,186 disasters) during the past four decades (1970-2009). Africa had the maximum number of droughts, as also the maximum deaths due to droughts, but Asia suffered the maximum economic loss as also the maximum number of persons affected due to droughts. Table-1 : Continental Contrasts - Impact of Drought - 1970-2009 No. of Total Average Total Average Damage Events Killed killed Affected Affected (000 US$) Africa 184 553095 3006 266806719 1450037 4816693 Americas 97 77 1 47203120 486630 15432539 Asia 100 5308 53 1292962442 12929624 27619641 Europe 34 2 0 10482969 308323 18561309 Oceania 13 60 5 7987635 614433 10103000 Total 428 558542 1305 1625442885 3797764 76533182 Source : EM-DAT, Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters, Leuven Drought comprises of nearly 18% of all natural disasters of Africa, 4.5% in Oceania, 4% in Americas and 3.5% in Asia and Europe, but the percentage of persons affected by drought far exceeded their numbers in all the continents. Figure 1 : Proportion of Disaster Occurrence by Continent 1970-2009 | 1 | Drought Risk Management in South Asia Figure 2 : Proportion of Persons Affected by Disasters by Continent 1970-2009 Almost every country of the globe, except parts of Northern America and Eastern and Central Europe, is affected by droughts of varying magnitudes. Country wise spread of drought is shown in figure 3. Each country differs in its capacity to effectively prepare for and respond to the effects of drought. Therefore, the number of people affected by drought and the types of impacts experienced vary widely. In the Asian region, in particular, India and China recorded the largest number of people affected by drought from 1970 to 2009. However, for the same period, it was Africa that recorded the largest number of peopled killed due to the catastrophic droughts in Ethiopia, Sudan and Mozambique in the 1980s. Disasters triggered by prolonged drought in developing countries can severely harm countries' development, affect millions of people and contribute to malnutrition, famine, loss of life and livelihoods, emigration and conflict situations; whereas droughts in developed countries primarily result in economic losses. Figure 3 : Number of Drought Disasters Reported by Country 1970-2009 Every projection indicates that the incidence of drought would increase with global warming and its impact worsens particularly in the developing countries. There have been at least four different but interrelated global initiatives to reduce the risks of drought and to combat the effects of drought on the life and livelihood of the people. The first is the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) of 1994 which is rooted in a Plan of Action to Combat Desertification, adopted by the United Nations Conference on Desertification in 1977. As of | 2 | SAARC Workshop on Drought Risk Management in South Asia Figure 4 : Number of Persons Reported Affected by Drought 1970-2009 31 December 2009, the Convention had 193 country Parties. The eighth session of the Conference of the Par- ties (COP 8) held in Madrid, Spain, in June 2007, adopted a 10-year strategic plan and framework to enhance the implementation of the Convention (2008-2018) and effectively combat desertification. The strategic plan will operate through five specific objectives: 1) advocacy, awareness-raising and education, 2) enhanced policy framework, 3) science and technology, 4) capacity building, and 5) financing and technology transfer. In ad- dition, roles and responsibilities of the various UNCCD institutions, partners and stakeholders have been re- shaped, including those of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST), the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC), the Global Mechanism (GM) and the UNCCD secretariat. Drought risk reduction is also connected with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFC- CC). The UNFCCC encourages the Parties to cooperate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change and to develop appropriate plans for various areas including water resources, agriculture and reha- bilitation of regions affected by drought and desertification. The Bali Action Plan that was agreed by the UN- FCCC Thirteenth Conference of the Parties, held in Bali, Indonesia, 3-14 December 2007call for enhanced action on adaptation through consideration of: w Risk management and risk reduction strategies, including risk sharing and transfer mechanisms such as insurance; w Disaster reduction strategies and means to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), administered by UNEP, provides another relevant framework for drought risk reduction. In particular, its programmes on Dry and Sub-humid Lands Biodiversity and Tradi- tional Knowledge, Innovations and Practices, offer valuable expertise

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