EO products for drought risk reduction

Abstract

Drought risk reduction strategies, with enhanced focus on preparedness, mitigation and warning, are truly knowledge intensive. Their implementation demands scientific inputs on all the aspects related to drought vulnerability, which are quite dynamic, difficult to capture and also complex. While Earth Observation (EO) information products and services do have enabling roles in addressing some of these demands, the issue is their integration as a part of the national strategy towards drought risk reduction. In efforts to promote principles of risk management by encouraging development of early warning systems; preparedness plans at all government levels; mitigation policies and programmes that reduce drought impacts; a coordinated emergency response programme that ensures timely and targeted relief during drought emergencies, use of EO enabled products and services has been found making impacts, whenever they have been used strategically. Although, drought risk reduction strategies are more specific and vary between countries, reflecting their unique physical, environmental, socioeconomic, and political characteristics, the generic EO information products and services have been contextualized accordingly through appropriate value addition and with the participation of the end users. Further, disseminating EO products and services through web have brought in newer challenges. The products and services of coarseresolution EO payloads have reached to the end users in many parts of the world, including India. However, technically these services cannot be extended beyond the early warning and broad level qualitative drought assessment and monitoring, while the real strength of EO lies in its applications towards mitigation and preparedness. The operationally demonstrated products and services, closer to community action and their enhanced coping mechanisms, need to be promoted. Access to high-resolution multi-spectral (to the extent of 20 m spatial resolution) EO products is an important information empowerment towards drought mitigation. Institutional infrastructure, especially basic national systems and services, is to be positioned strategically to absorb and recast, as per the local requirements, the products and services increasingly becoming available from the global/regional EO missions. Funding of drought risk is yet another emerging area wherein financial institutions especially insurance and banking sectors have interests, while high resolution multi-spectral imaging has a role to bring out in-season crop and weather statistics. A public private partnership could be built on such issues of common interest. Community based drought management, synergizing the indigenous coping mechanisms, local wisdom and technological means, is the ultimate to achieve. The paper spells out all these perspectives, while advocating the overall interest of developing countries in using EO products as a strategy towards drought risk reduction. © 2009 Springer Netherlands.