Drought in India


Drought in India has resulted in tens of millions of deaths over the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on the country's climate: a favorable southwest summer monsoon is critical to securing water for irrigating India's crops. In parts of India, failure of the monsoons causes water shortages, resulting in below-average crop yields. This is particularly true of major drought-prone regions such as southern and eastern Maharashtra, northern Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Telangana, and Rajasthan.

History

In the past, droughts have periodically led to major Indian famines, including the Bengal famine of 1770, in which up to one third of the population in affected areas died; the 1876-1877 famine, in which over five million people died; and the 1899 famine, in which over 4.5 million died. 1972 Maharashtra drought affected 2.5 crore people. In simple words, drought has destroyed India on a large scale.

Impact of El Niño

All such episodes of severe drought correlate with El Niño-Southern Oscillation events. El Niño-related droughts have also been implicated in periodic declines in Indian agricultural output. Nevertheless, ENSO events that have coincided with abnormally high sea surfaces temperatures in the Indian Ocean—in one instance during 1997 and 1998 by up to 3 °C —have resulted in increased oceanic evaporation, resulting in unusually wet weather across India. Such anomalies have occurred during a sustained warm spell that began in the 1990s. A contrasting phenomenon is that, instead of the usual high pressure air mass over the southern Indian Ocean, an ENSO-related oceanic low pressure convergence center forms; it then continually pulls dry air from Central Asia, desiccating India during what should have been the humid summer monsoon season. This reversed air flow causes India's droughts. The extent that an ENSO event raises sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean influences the degree of drought. Around 43 per cent of El Niño events are followed by drought in India.

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