Assessment of frequency and severity of droughts in Maharashtra state of India

Abstract

Droughts are most severe among all natural calamities across the world and spread over larger spatial extent than floods and earthquake. Maharashtra state in India experiences droughts almost every year in one or other part. This study attempts to understand the characteristics of drought during the twentieth century over different districts in Maharashtra, using 113 years (1901–2013) of rainfall data. The deviation of seasonal rainfall for each district has been computed for the identification of drought and its characteristics. The major purpose of this study is to investigate the variation in drought characteristics across the state of Maharashtra over the period of 113 years which may be helpful to deal with the impacts of drought in future and in framing suitable preparedness measures. The analysis revealed that Hingoli, Latur, Ahmednagar, Jalna, Osmanabad, Solapur, Beed, and Parbhani districts are more prone to the frequent and severe drought events with return period of 4–5 years. The change in return period of droughts has been checked for three different eras, i.e., 1901–1950, 1951–2013, and 1981–2013 and it was found that during the period of 1981–2013, drought became more frequent and severe across the state. The maximum rainfall deficiency in the state was observed to be in the range of 43–73%. The long-term data analysis of rainfall revealed that 1918, 1920, 1971, 1987, and 2001 were the years of severe droughts in Maharashtra. Also major parts of the state faced maximum persistency of 2 years. Drought events never persisted in Nagpur. Pune, Hingoli, and Sangli have faced the drought with maximum persistency of 4 years. The findings from the analysis in this study shall be very useful for making regional- and district-level strategies for the effective mitigation of droughts.