Spatio-temporal Analysis of Agricultural Drought Risk across India

Agricultural drought poses a major challenge to food security in India, where crop production is largely dependent on the availability of rainfall and soil moisture. Despite extensive research, most drought assessments in India remain region-specific, limiting a holistic understanding of compound agricultural drought risk at the national scale. This study presents a nationwide, district-level assessment of agricultural drought risk across India by integrating drought hazard, exposure, and vulnerability within a unified framework. The assessment is performed for the period 1966–2014 using long-term hydroclimatic, agricultural, and socioeconomic datasets. Agricultural drought hazard is quantified using a copula-based approach that explicitly captures the concurrence of meteorological and soil moisture drought conditions, thereby characterizing compound drought events. Exposure is estimated using percentile-based normalization (5th and 95th percentiles) of population and agriculture-dependent indicators. Vulnerability is evaluated using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), incorporating socioeconomic and infrastructural indicators. The results reveal pronounced spatial and temporal variability in agricultural drought risk across India. An elevated risk was found for the Indo-Gangetic Plain, particularly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, during the years 1966, 1979, 2009–2011, and 2012. In contrast, north-western India, including Rajasthan, Punjab, and Haryana, experienced heightened compound drought risk during 1987–1988 and 2001–2003. Central India, encompassing Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, also emerged as a major hotspot in 1992, 2001–2002, and 2012, while Bihar and Jharkhand exhibited elevated risk in 1983 and 1992. These evolving regional patterns demonstrate the capability of the proposed framework to monitor the spatial progression of agricultural drought risk across districts over time, in association with changes in drought hazard, exposure, and vulnerability, highlighting the importance of regionally targeted drought risk management and adaptation measures.