Drought hazards and stakeholder perception: Unraveling the interlinkages between drought severity, perceived impacts, preparedness, and management

Abstract

The future risk for droughts and water shortages calls for substantial efforts by authorities to adapt at local levels. Understanding their perception of drought hazards, risk and vulnerability can help to identify drivers of and barriers to drought risk planning and management in a changing climate at the local level. This paper presents a novel interdisciplinary drought case study in Sweden that integrates soft data from a nationwide survey among more than 100 local practitioners and hard data based on hydrological measurements to provide a holistic assessment of the links between drought severity and the perceived levels of drought severity, impacts, preparedness, and management for two consecutive drought events. The paper highlights challenges for drought risk planning and management in a changing climate at the local level and elaborates on how improved understanding of local practitioners to plan for climate change adaptation can be achieved.

Review article: Drought as a continuum: memory effects in interlinked hydrological, ecological, and social systems

“…Table1: Examples of drought as a continuum in the hydrological system, ecosystem and social system based on specific studies. (Barker et al, 2016) stomatal regulation gradually leads to loss of hydraulic conductance, which over time can lead to mortality (Hammond et al, 2019;Tombesi et al, 2015) different response times of public & private sectors (Teutschbein et al, 2023) recovery hydrological drought recovery depends on catchment characteristics & human influences (Margariti et al, 2019;Parry et al, 2016) ecosystem recovery times associated with ecosystem types & drought characteristics (Schwalm et al, 2017) financial & political processes prevent social recovery (Pribyl et al, 2019) 3 Drought as a continuum in different systems…”

Reply on CC1

“…Thus, social impacts of drought arise when policies, regulations and other drought management actions fail or are inadequate and society cannot cope with dry conditions. Additionally, different groups or sectors of society can be impacted by the same drought but in different ways and at different times (Stahl et al, 2016;Wlostowski et al, 2022); they may also respond differently (Teutschbein et al, 2023). For instance, rainfed agriculture is sensitive to meteorological and soil moisture drought, while hydropower and inland navigation are sensitive to hydrological droughts (Van Loon, 2015;Teutschbein et al, 2023).…”

“…Additionally, different groups or sectors of society can be impacted by the same drought but in different ways and at different times (Stahl et al, 2016;Wlostowski et al, 2022); they may also respond differently (Teutschbein et al, 2023). For instance, rainfed agriculture is sensitive to meteorological and soil moisture drought, while hydropower and inland navigation are sensitive to hydrological droughts (Van Loon, 2015;Teutschbein et al, 2023). Consequently, the timing of drought impacts in each context is related to the speed of drought propagation through the hydrological cycle (Van Lanen et al, 2016) (Fig.…”

Reply on RC1

“…Additionally, different groups or sectors of society can be impacted by the same drought but in different ways and at different times (Stahl et al, 2016;Wlostowski et al, 2022); they may also respond differently (Teutschbein et al, 2023). For instance, rainfed agriculture is sensitive to meteorological and soil moisture drought, while hydropower and inland navigation are sensitive to hydrological droughts (Van Loon, 2015;Teutschbein et al, 2023). Consequently, the timing of drought impacts in each context is related to the speed of drought propagation through the hydrological cycle (Van Lanen et al, 2016) (Fig.…”

“…These interactions and non-linearities are often not included in drought hazard-impacts studies (Wens et al, 2019), and studies on future drought risk only consider changes in drought hazard, keeping exposure and vulnerability fixed in time (Hagenlocher et al, 2019). In addition, the perception of drought severity, impacts, planning, and management can also considerably differ among different societies or communities, as well as over time, and may not always align with the actual observed drought severity and impacts (Teutschbein et al, 2023).…”