Droughts in a Changing Climate: Advances in Modeling, Forecasting and Strategies for Adaptation

About this Research Topic

Background

Droughts are natural hazards that can impact the economy, environment and people’s well-being and livelihoods. Droughts often occur as a decrease in precipitation (meteorological drought) over time intervals ranging from weeks, months, to years. This water deficit can manifest throughout water systems including soil (agricultural drought), rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and aquifers (hydrological droughts). These changes in precipitation patterns as a consequence of climate change have increased the frequency, intensity, and severity of droughts around the world, exacerbating water conflicts and impairing decision-makers and stakeholders. Further research is required to better understand spatio-temporal dynamics of drought, drought propagation, and the influence of human activities and climate change. Also, the development of efficient tools for drought forecasting can inform early warning systems for drought management.

This Research Topic in Frontiers in Water & Climate seeks to promote discussion of novel strategies to overcome drought impacts and water scarcity and novel techniques and models that advance understanding and modeling of droughts at a range of spatiotemporal scales. We specifically encourage submissions that focus on: (1) new multivariate standardized indexes for drought characterization; (2) new approaches for assessing the mechanisms of drought propagation between distinct phases of the water cycle; (3) novel analytical and data-driven models for drought forecasting, including variants conditioned on climate models’ outputs and teleconnections; (4) the effects of reservoirs in drought propagation; (5) quantification of the effects of climate change and human activities on drought regimes; and (6) novel approaches for drought mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The Research Topic also seeks submissions outlining alternative policies for water resources planning and management under the intensification of drought effects and use of new databases (e.g. remote sensing) for modeling droughts and drought propagation.

The scope of this special edition encompasses, but is not limited to, the following topics:
- spatial and temporal propagation of droughts,
- effects of feedback in drought propagation and intensification,
- anthropogenic effects on drought propagation,
- strategies for drought mitigation and adaptation,
- methodologies to improve drought forecasting,
- water resources planning and management under drought conditions,
- novel methodologies to characterize droughts and flash droughts,
- ecosystem-based solutions to manage drought risk.

Keywords: Droughts, climate change, forecasting models, drought propagation, drivers of drought

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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