Asia Community

Is Drought Forecasting Helpful? Why It Matters for Better Decisions

Our lives depend on the choices we make. These choices shape our future. Now, think bigger—about a country, its economy, and millions of people. Their future depends on good decisions too. This is why drought forecasting is important. If we know early about dry times ahead, we can prepare better. This helps us make smart decisions to save water, protect crops, and keep people safe.

Drought forecasting is not just about guessing if it will rain or not. It uses many tools and methods to give us clear information about the future:
1) Drought indices are numbers that show how dry the land is, like the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and others.
2) Models: Scientists use weather and climate data with computer models to predict drought.

3) Artificial intelligence and machine learning learn from past data to improve drought predictions.
4) Advanced tools platforms like Climate Engine and SEED-FD help monitor droughts and predict sudden dry spells.
5) The hybrid approach that combines different methods, gives better and more reliable forecasts.
These tools help governments and communities prepare for droughts earlier and make better decisions. It means fewer surprises and less damage. In short, drought forecasting helps us manage risks and protect lives. Without it, we make decisions too late. With it, we are ready and strong. The future depends on what we do today. Drought forecasting gives us the information to make good choices.

Hello Everyone, I'm Chinthaka and am a newly joined member. Currently, I am a PhD researcher at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand. I am investigating the soil moisture behavioural patterns (especially soil moisture memory - SMM) for enhancing agricultural drought monitoring in mainland Southeast Asia.

I am glad to join the community and look forward to interesting discussions and exchanging knowledge.

The Silent Link Between Drought and Contaminated Water
How dry spells intensify pollution and overwhelm treatment systems

When we think of drought, we imagine dry land and vanishing streams. But there's a hidden danger we often ignore: water quality. Drought doesn’t just mean less water; it means dirtier, riskier water too.

Why does water quality get worse during drought?

Less water means pollutants like heavy metals, salts, nutrients, and pathogens become more concentrated. Higher temperatures during drought reduce dissolved oxygen, harming aquatic life and making water taste and smell unpleasant. With rivers and lakes flowing more slowly or even stagnating, harmful algal blooms and bacterial growth can flourish. Exposed soils and increased erosion add sediments, making water cloudy and harder to treat [1].
During droughts, wastewater treatment plants face significant challenges that go far beyond water scarcity. Lower inflows reduce the stream’s ability to dilute pollutants. As incoming water becomes more concentrated, levels of ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, total suspended solids, and total dissolved solids rise sharply, pushing systems toward their operational limits. Warmer water temperatures intensify bacterial activity, increase biochemical oxygen demand, and disrupt processes like sludge settling and aeration [2]. Structural risks also emerge, as dry, contracting soils can crack pipes and degrade infrastructure. These stressors can cause odor issues, algal blooms in clarifiers, and even visible degradation downstream. In extreme conditions, streams may experience stagnant, low-oxygen water, pathogen buildup, and fish kills [3]. Drought doesn’t just challenge our water quantity; it fundamentally strains the capacity, cost, and compliance of water treatment across entire regions [4].
Why does this matter for water treatment?
Most treatment plants are built for “normal” water quality not the extreme concentrations of pollutants seen during drought. Removing nitrates, sulfates, and heavy metals becomes much harder and more expensive. In rural areas without advanced treatment facilities, poor water quality can directly threaten public health. Drought pushes water treatment systems beyond their design limits, risking system failure and unsafe water for millions.
Therefore, the recommendations for wastewater treatment management during drought are:
1. Implement real-time monitoring systems for key water quality parameters such as nutrient concentrations (ammonia, nitrate, phosphate), total suspended solids, and total dissolved solids to detect changes early.
2. Develop and regularly update a comprehensive drought response plan that outlines operational adjustments, resource allocation, and contingency measures to ensure uninterrupted treatment performance.
3. Adjust treatment processes to handle higher pollutant concentrations by optimizing aeration, sludge management, and chemical dosing to maintain treatment efficiency under stressed conditions.
4. Conduct frequent inspections and maintenance of pipelines and treatment infrastructure to prevent damage caused by soil contraction and corrosion during drought.
5. Ensure staff receive regular training on drought-related operational challenges and promote collaboration with environmental agencies for shared resources and expertise.

Reference
[1] Peña-Guerrero MD, Nauditt A, Muñoz-Robles C, et al. Drought impacts on water quality and potential implications for agricultural production in the Maipo River Basin, Central Chile. Hydrol Sci J [Internet]. 2020;65(6):1005–1021.
[2] Marino A, Bertolotti S, Macrì M, et al. Impact of wastewater treatment and drought in an Alpine region: a multidisciplinary case study. Heliyon [Internet]. 2024;10(15):e35290.
[3] Mosley LM. Drought impacts on the water quality of freshwater systems; review and integration. Earth-Science Rev [Internet]. 2015;140:203–214.
[4] Wright B, Stanford BD, Reinert A, et al. Managing water quality impacts from drought on drinking water supplies. J Water Supply Res Technol [Internet]. 2014;63(3):179–188.

Full press see the website of IWMI: https://www.iwmi.org/news/iwmi-to-host-secretariat-of-the-global-commis…

IWMI hosts Secretariat of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water

The Global Commission on the Economics of Water announced today that the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) will serve as the host institution for its Secretariat. In this role, IWMI will support coordination, administration, communications, and outreach functions, as the Global Commission disseminates findings of its 2024 report and works with coalitions around the world to implement its recommendations.

The Global Commission will maintain its independent status while leveraging IWMI’s research and international presence, partnerships and innovation capabilities. The Secretariat will be operational at IWMI’s global headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka, effective February 24, 2025.

“We commend and thank the Government of the Netherlands for convening the Global Commission on the Economics of Water in 2022 and continuing to support us well into 2025. We thank the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for providing secretariat support up to the launch of our groundbreaking report in October last year,” expressed Henk Ovink, Executive Director of the Global Commission. “Now that the Commission’s messages resonate across the globe, we have entered the stage where we seek to make our vision a reality. We’re convinced that with IWMI, the Commission’s legacy is in good hands. IWMI will enable the Global Commission to deepen the debate on our findings with relevant actors, strengthen an enabling environment to act, and forge partnerships to build an economy that delivers on the five critical missions the Commission identified, while re-stabilizing the global water cycle within safe boundaries.”

“IWMI is honored to support the next stage of the Global Commission’s vital work and contribute to its five missions,” said Mark Smith, Director General of IWMI. “We are committed to supporting its efforts to address critical water challenges and transformation in food systems, ecosystems, urban systems, renewable energy and AI, and health and hygiene.”

In its 2024 report, the Global Commission reminds the international community that we can fix the water crisis if we govern the hydrological cycle as a global common good, act collectively, and with greater urgency. Not doing so will come at staggering cost of inaction: by 2050, GDP could reduce by 10–15% per year in low-income countries and by 8% per year in high-income countries.

Launched in 2022, the Global Commission on the Economics of Water is redefining the way we value and govern water for the common good. It presents the evidence and the pathways for changes in policy, business approaches and global collaboration to support rebalancing the water cycle for economic resilience, environmental sustainability, and social equity.

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About the Global Commission on the Economics of Water:

The Global Commission on the Economics of Water is an international initiative convened by the Government of the Netherlands in the lead-up to the UN 2023 Water Conference. Its report, The Economics of Water: Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Good, is inspired by, and builds on, the game-changing Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity. The Global Commission is executed by an independent and diverse group of eminent policymakers and researchers in fields that bring novel perspectives to water economics, aligning the planetary economy with sustainable water-resource management. Its purpose is to make a significant and ambitious contribution to the global effort to spur change in the way societies govern, use, and value water.

About IWMI:

The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is an international, research-for-development organization that works with governments, civil society and the private sector to solve water problems in developing countries and scale up solutions. Through partnership, IWMI combines research on the sustainable use of water and land resources, knowledge services and products with capacity strengthening, dialogue and policy analysis to support implementation of water management solutions for agriculture, ecosystems, climate change and inclusive economic growth. Headquartered in Colombo, Sri Lanka, IWMI is a CGIAR Research Center with offices in 15 countries and a global network of scientists operating in more than 55 countries.

Note to editors

For more information, please visit www.watercommission.org.

To arrange interviews, please contact the media team of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water and Rodrigo Ordóñez, Head of Communications & Knowledge Management, IWMI.

Historical drought and its trend in South Asia: Spatial and temporal analysis 2000-2020

This is an open accessed article available via: https://www.apn-gcr.org/bulletin/article/historical-drought-and-its-tre… Some authors are also members of this Community.