A Drought Adaptation Management System for Groundwater Resources Based on Combined Drought Index and Vulnerability Analysis

Abstract

Water scarcity is one of the largest global risks in terms of potential impact over the next decade as it affects every continent is manifested by partial or no satisfaction of expressed demand, economic competition for water quantity or quality, disputes between users, irreversible depletion of groundwater, and negative impacts on the environment. Jordanian water crises are exacerbating all of the time due to increased water demands derived from high population growth, sudden fluxes of refugees, economic development, and increased frequency of drought events. These forces stress the urgent need to develop drought adaptation planning based on vulnerability mapping correlated to prolonged weather events. The objective of this research is thus to generate a drought vulnerability map with an emphasis on the severity and probability of drought occurrence, and to propose adaption measures based on groundwater sector impact chain analysis by incorporating numerical scorings for exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacities at groundwater basin and Jordanian district levels. Drought impacts on groundwater basins were investigated based on measurements of severity and probability of drought occurrence, and drought exposure over the whole country computed by means of a combined drought index (CDI) that included the precipitation drought index, temperature drought index, and vegetation drought index from 1980 to 2017. Results indicated that drought in Jordan is characterised by a temporal and spatial variability regarding probability and severity. The most prolonged drought events range from mild to moderate, with long periods of exposure that may extend for up to 13 consecutive years. Due to high groundwater basin sensitivity and low adaptive capacity, the groundwater systems in Jordan are fragile and highly vulnerable to drought impacts, being subject to either reduction in quantity and/or deterioration in quality over time. The most vulnerable groundwater basins are the Azraq and Dead Sea regions, while Disi and Yarmouk are also highly vulnerable groundwater basins based on the weak enforcement of transboundary agreements. The proposed drought risk management system based on this research includes proactive and contingency plans enabled by policies and legal frameworks at the national level to ensure sustainable water resilience and governance.

Persistent heat waves projected for Middle East and North Africa by the end of the 21st century

“…The importance of conducting studies over the MENA region lies mainly in the potential catastrophic impact on human health [15,[25][26][27], and the difficulty of the population of these countries to mitigate or adapt to these impacts. Recent studies have focused on the future difficulties that the MENA region will face in terms of water demands, high population growth, sudden flows of refugees and economic development [28][29][30][31].…”

Spatial assessment of drought vulnerability using fuzzy-analytical hierarchical process: a case study at the Indian state of Odisha

“…Significant amount of the researches have been conducted regarding the drought prediction and susceptibility (Sheffield and Wood 2008;Gidey et al 2018;Spinoni et al 2018;Al Adaileh et al 2019;Ghosh 2019;Hoque et al 2020;Quenum et al 2019;Bhunia et al 2020). Drought mitigation and policy development studies for India have been done by various scientists (Bandyopadhyay et al 2020;Gupta et al 2020).…”

A Decade of Hydrological Drought in Central-Western Argentina

“…This trend can be linked not only to groundwater overexploitation but also due to low snow accumulation, streamflow deficiencies, reductions in glaciers and in lake and reservoirs levels over the last decade. Some drought adaptation management plans combine the information from drought indices and groundwater resources to ensure sustainable water resilience and governance (Al Adaileh et al, 2019). Considering the heterogeneity of the soil in the oases of the region, the diversity of crops, and the occasional water supply from rainfall, this strategy should be complemented with the monitoring of soil water content in order to improve irrigation management and water use efficiency (Nolz et al, 2016;Barker et al, 2017;Hu et al, 2019;Lei et al, 2020).…”