The country has a long experience of managing drought but it is time it evolved its long-term forecasting mechanism
In the recent past, the definition of a normal monsoon has lost its relevance as its week-by-week forecasts have fallen flat.
The current monsoon season describes how unpredictable the climate has become — from a very late onset in June to an excess in July to a record-breaking pause in August resulting in lowest rainfall since 1901 with a 36 per cent deficiency.
Overall, seasonal rainfall is also 10 per cent short of normal because of El Nino. The India Meteorological Department has said the probability of the western coast receiving a ‘below normal’ rainfall in September would be high.
The most dreaded impact of a seasonal failure in monsoon is the drought that directly affects agriculture. But, drought forecasting in India has not evolved to a level that can warn people early.
Declaration of drought is a post-seasonal activity based on a defined level of rainfall. But, droughts evolve as the monsoon season progresses.
Each of the four monsoon months — June, July, August and September — have a bearing on whether a year will be a drought.
Besides, each month’s rainfall progress leads to a certain type of crisis. For instance, the low rainfall in August — that contributes around 22 per cent of total seasonal rainfall — can lead to higher use of reservoir storage and more extraction of groundwater.
The shortfall in August this time in central (47 per cent), southern (60 per cent) and northwest (37 per cent) is likely to impact pulses and oilseeds.
Most of the current initiatives on forecasting drought revolve around forecasting weather in short-term or bringing in periodic rainfall data.
In February this year, scientists attempted a long-term forecasting of droughts in India by deploying a deep learning machine model called “long short-term memory” to analyse rainfall and drought conditions of 117 years. This model picks up past data trends that are used to forecast future trends for 2018-2027.
Till 2027, this study says that the states of Karnataka, Gujarat and Uttarakhand will be affected by severe drought while Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana will be affected by moderate drought.
Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Telangana and Sikkim will receive good rainfall but undergo drought every alternate year.
When we have a long-term forecast of drought, the government can direct its drought mitigation activities like availing irrigation, creating the right crop cycle and also prescribing crops suitable for low rainfall. India has a long experience of managing drought but it is time it evolved its long-term forecasting mechanism.
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