Drought risk management in Mexico: progress and challenges

Abstract

Drought is one of the most complex natural phenomena, which affects the most people in the world. In Mexico, drought has been a recurrent and persistent problem throughout its history. In recent years, drought has affected large agricultural areas and rural communities, leading to severe imbalances in the regional and national economies, as occurred during the 2011-2012 drought, the most severe of the last 70 years. Therefore, in this paper an analysis of the measures that have recently been implemented to cope with drought in Mexico, which highlights the beginning of the transition from a reactive approach based on the crisis management towards a proactive approach aimed to risk management, with the implementation of the National Program Against Drought (PRONACOSE, for its acronym in Spanish) launched in 2013 is presented. So, in this paper, the components of this program are presented, along with a brief description of the Programs of Preventive and Mitigation Drought Measures (PMPMS, for its acronym in Spanish), which have been formulated as an integral part of PRONACOSE for each of the 26 basin councils in the country. Similarly, some of the main future challenges in drought management and research needs identified during the formulation of the PMPMS are exposed. We concluded that there is no way to avoid a drought but there are ways to mitigate its impacts and reduce losses of those affected by the phenomenon. Drought risk can't be completely eliminated, but preventive actions implemented in the future will be useful to mitigate its effects.

Drought Vulnerability Indices in Mexico

“…In an attempt to address the situation, the Mexican federal government decided to put in place a drought public policy in 2013 [21,22], and created the Intersecretarial Commission for Drought and Flood Attention (CIASI, by its acronym in Spanish) to implement and follow up on said policy. The National Program Against Drought (PRONACOSE, by its acronym in Spanish) was implemented as a guideline for this public policy; the program is intended to enforce a series of preventive and mitigating measures to reduce the population's vulnerability to drought [23], bearing in mind that the risk of disaster by drought depends not only on the degree of rainfall scarcity and the duration and geographical scope of the phenomenon, but also on conditions of vulnerability that increase the chance of disaster when drought takes place [24].…”

Transcriptional profiling of sugarcane leaves and roots under progressive osmotic stress reveals a regulated coordination of gene expression in a spatiotemporal manner

“…The global climate change projections in the last years points to a bleak scenario where drought is the major problem for sugarcane crop production [ 5 , 6 ]. Drought has affected large agricultural areas and rural communities, resulting in imbalance at micro and macroeconomics levels [ 7 ]. Even more, drought projections point to a 25% decrease in production by 2080 [ 8 , 9 ].…”

A half-baked solution: drivers of water crises in Mexico

“…Mexico is prone to droughts, the most recent one of 2011-2012 being the worst in 70 years, with an agricultural economic loss of USD 1.3 billion, and an overall loss of 10 % of the GDP (Ortega-Gaucin et al, 2016). The country has shifted from a crisis management approach to a risk management one (Korenfeld-Felderman et al, 2014), through the National Drought Program (PRONACOSE for its Spanish acronym).…”