Novel Approaches to Assess and Cope with Droughts in Data Scarce Regions

Background

Droughts are causing severe damages worldwide. Drought adaptation strategies, however, require a profound knowledge about the spatial and seasonal distribution of drought risk at local or river basin scale. Therefore, with this session, we intend to highlight innovative data sets and methodologies contributing to a better assessment and management of drought risk – especially in data scarce catchments.
Droughts are slowly evolving and complex disasters, often poorly understood in the context of their regional climatic, hydrological and human environment. Therefore, we welcome research looking at hazard, vulnerability and exposure, the individual components of drought risk.

This session aims at presenting and discussing concepts, methods and data which can support drought assessment, management and forecasting.

Key topics and questions

  • How can remote sensing data and monitoring be used for catchment scale drought management?
  • Which tools and methods are suitable to be used for drought assessment and management in data scarce regions?
  • What are the best (and worst) drought assessment and management practices for specific case studies?
  • How can drought impacts be assessed for different sectors?
  • How do we evaluate drought vulnerability and exposure?
  • Which drought indicators should be incorporated in drought management strategies in different regions?
  • How can we forecast hydrological drought and which variables need to be monitored at which scale?

Keywords

  • Drought risk
  • Drought monitoring
  • Drought forecasting
  • Drought vulnerability
  • Drought impacts
  • Drought adaptation
  • Remote sensing
  • Hydrological modelling

Hosted by

Alexandra Nauditt

Environmental Scientist

Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT), TH Köln – Germany

Lars Ribbe

Director

Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT), TH Köln – Germany