Much of Indian agriculture depends on seasonal rainfall and is therefore very sensitive to any failure or irregular of the same
Answers
Explanation:
Monsoon drought is natural disaster known to India from time immemorial as the rain in
some area of India underperforms. The Indian sub continent experiences large-scale
drought in some part or the other, almost every year. Drought occurs in nearly all climatic
zones of the world at one time or other, but this creeping phenomenon mostly affects
tropics and adjoining regions. As a disaster, its experience feels only after it has occurred.
Drought exerts profound influence over agriculture, hydrology, tourism, transport, water
supply, hydroelectricity, etc. There is hardly any decade when the drought not occurred in
India at least in two years. Hence, drought a normal feature of our climate and its
recurrence is inevitable. It is part of climate variability. Unlike other weather related
natural disasters drought creeps in slowly and passively. Naturally, the study of monsoon
features and consequent drought has attracted the attention of Indian meteorologists’
since long time.
2.1 Drought Definitions
Drought is an occasion when the rainfall for a week is half of the normal or less, when
the normal weekly rainfall is 5 mm or more. Agricultural drought is a period of four such
consecutive weeks in the period from middle of October or six consecutive weeks during
rest of the year. Seasonal drought occurs when the actual seasonal rainfall is deficient by
more than twice the mean deviation.1
This is description of drought stated in the report of
National commission of Agriculture of 1976. Subramaniaym and co- workers made use
of aridity index of Thornthwaite and drought years were classified as moderate, large
severe or disastrous according to the departure of the yearly aridity index from the
climatic normal values. 2
Drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions that results in water-related problems.
Definitions of drought varied widely with area of interest. Palmer (USA) defines drought
as an interval of time, generally the order of months or year in duration, during which the
actual moisture supply at given place consistently falls short of the climatically expected
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