Drought Vulnerability in the United States: An Integrated Assessment

Abstract

Droughts are among the costliest natural hazards in the U.S. and globally. The severity of the hazard is closely related to a region’s ability to cope and recover from the event, an ability that depends on the region’s sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Here, the vulnerability to drought of each state within the contiguous U.S. is assessed as a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, using socio-economic, climatic, and environmental indicators. The division of vulnerability into three sub-indices allows for an assessment of the driver(s) of vulnerability of a state and as such provides a foundation for drought mitigation and planning efforts. In addition, a probabilistic approach is used to investigate the sensitivity of vulnerability to the weighting scheme of indicators. The resulting geographic distribution of relative vulnerability of the states is partially a reflection of their heterogeneous climates but also highlights the importance of sustainable adaptation of the local economy to water availability in order to reduce sensitivity and to limit the impact of drought. As such, the study at hand offers insights to local and regional planners on how to effectively distribute funds and plan accordingly in order to reduce state-level drought vulnerability today and in the future.

Development of a Flash Drought Intensity Index

“…It will also be valuable for quantifying trends not only in flash drought occurrence [29,43], but also in their intensity, both in the historical record and in the future under different climate scenarios [44]. The FDII could also assist climate and climate change vulnerability assessments by providing a new index that would allow researchers to investigate environmental and socioeconomic impacts associated with flash droughts of varying intensity [45][46][47]. As a biophysical indicator of drought intensity, the FDII could serve as the basis for biophysical, socioeconomic, or integrated vulnerability assessment studies [48][49][50].…”

Amplified Drought and Flood Risk Under Future Socioeconomic and Climatic Change

“…In previous global flood risk studies, vulnerability has been considered by using a limited number of proxy indicators. This is partly due to the limited availability of future gridded socioeconomic data at the global scale, while a wide range of indicators is available at the local and regional scales to determine flood or drought vulnerability (Engström et al., 2020; Kim et al., 2015; Nasiri et al., 2016; Scheuer et al., 2011). Most global flood studies to date have solely considered future population exposure and economic vulnerability as expressed by gross domestic product (GDP) (Hinkel et al., 2014; Jongman et al., 2015; Kinoshita et al., 2018; Liao et al., 2019; Tanoue et al., 2016; Vafeidis et al., 2019; Ward et al., 2017).…”

Vulnerability to Water Shortage Under Current and Future Water Supply‐Demand Conditions Across U.S. River Basins

“…Water availability plays a critical role in a wide range of environmental, agricultural, industrial, and recreational activities. However, urbanization, population growth, and climate change may lead to shifts in water supply‐demand conditions in river basins and culminate in short‐term or chronic water shortages (Brown et al., 2019; Engström et al., 2020; Heidari, Arabi, Ghanbari, & Warziniack, 2020; Heidari, Arabi, Warziniack, & Kao, 2020; Mahat et al., 2017; Naz et al., 2016; Warziniack & Brown, 2019; Xing et al., 2018). Water shortage occurs when water demand exceeds water supply (Foti et al., 2012; Salas et al., 2005; Yevjevich, 1967).…”

“…Engström et al. (2020) assessed the exposure of each state within the CONUS to water scarcity and represented only the frequency to show how often a state is in water shortage conditions. However, the effects of changes in the water supply demand balance must be characterized on shifts in intensity, duration, and frequency relationships of water shortage events.…”