Sikkim emerged as the state most prepared for a drought in India, in a recent study.
Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, on the other hand, are the states that are least prepared for such conditions.
A recent study published in the Journal of Hydrology found that while all the four districts of Sikkim are resilient to drought, making the state absolutely prepared to tackle the calamity, no district in Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh is tough enough to face a drought.
The study cites that Rajasthan is vulnerable to droughts because of its naturally dry conditions and lack of vegetation. But, it doesn’t mention any reasons for Chhattisgarh not being drought-proof.
In this study, drought resilience can be described as the ability of a land area to withstand dry conditions, resulting from decreased precipitation (rainfall, snowfall and hail) and loss of moisture from the top layers of soil, and keep supporting the growth of eco-systems.
The study calculates drought resilience by taking into account the eco-system water use efficiency (WUEe) of different districts and comparing it under dry conditions and its overall mean value, reports TNT.
The research, conducted by Manish Kumar Goyal at the Indian Institute of Technology, Indore, and Ashutosh Sharma at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, also found that 62 per cent of districts studied (634) in India were not resilient to drought.