Drought risk in the Mahanadi River basin: a multi-dimensional approach for integrated urban-rural drought management strategies

ABSTRACT

Droughts are one of the most spatially complex geohazards, having a significant impact on the economic status of any region. To mitigate drought risks, a comprehensive drought management plan is required, and the first step towards that goal is to assess the various aspects of drought risks in the preparation of a drought risk map. To produce an integrated drought risk map for Mahanadi River basin, India, the current study combines geospatial methodologies with the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique to assess various dimensions, viz. hydrological, meteorological, agricultural and socio-economic drought risk in the region in view of integrated rural-urban management strategies. A total of 17 criteria from different aspects were taken into consideration in different groups. The results showed that districts like Raipur, Bilaspur, Durg and Ragnandgaon faced extreme drought conditions combining assessments of agriculture, water resources, socioeconomic factors and weather patterns, reveals varying levels of risk across the region. According to the findings, 22.01% of the region is vulnerable to extreme drought and 31.64% of the area is suffering from severe drought. The results indicate that the technique used for identifying the region's susceptibility to drought is effective, which will help planners develop strategies for mitigating drought.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Analytical hierarchy process
• disaster mitigation
• drought risk
• drought types
• Mahanadi basin

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data availability statement

Data will be made available on reasonable request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Atul Kumar

Dr Atul Kumar is an assistant professor at the geography department of Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India. He holds a PhD in integrated geospatial environmental solution from the Department of Geography, School of Earth Sciences, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal (Central) University, Pauri (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India. Previously, he worked as a fellow at the University of Delhi with more than 8 years of professional experience.

Soumya Paramanik

Mr. Soumya Paramanik is a doctoral fellow in urban innovation and sustainability in the School of Environment, Resources and Development (Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand). He holds an MSc in remote sensing and GIS from North Orissa University, India. Previously, he worked as a design engineer at Randstad Digital, Bangaluru, India.

Triambak Baghel

Mr. Triambak Baghel, a Ph.D. student in water engineering and management at the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, holds a Master's degree in water resources development and irrigation engineering and a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. With over 9 years of experience in the water and climate field, he has contributed significantly to water engineering, hydrological modelling, climate impact studies, and risk assessment. He received the Future Environmental Leaders Scholarships 2022 through the DAAD program and the Young Scientist Award from the Chhattisgarh Council of Science and Technology in 2017 under the Government of Chhattisgarh India.

Malay Pramanik

Dr Malay Pramanik is an assistant professor and chair of urban innovation and sustainability in the School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. He holds an MPhil and PhD in integrated climate solutions from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He is the recipient of the distinguished ‘Charlie Boyden Award' from the ‘ECSA57' (2018), ‘Best Presentation Award' from Elsevier (2018), ‘Early Career Scientist' Award from EGU (2019), ‘Our Planet Our Health Initiative award’ from Welcome Trust (2019) for his outstanding research work. Previously, he worked as a fellow at the UKRI-GCRF-funded Living Deltas Hub project and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai as an assistant professor. His research interests and related research projects are green infrastructure planning for urban heat mitigation (e.g., Cooling cities), transformative solutions for transport, urban morphology, and urban-canyon-induced air pollution mitigation (e.g., BREATHE Cities), and sustainable urban developmental planning and design including community and infrastructure resilience plans amidst rising seas (e.g., ReTrEAT Cities).

Md. Mehedi Hasan

Mr. Md. Mehedi Hasan is currently serving as an Upazila engineer for the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) of the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. He holds a Master's degree in water engineering and management (WEM) from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand. Engr. Mehedi has conducted extensive research on climate change, nature-based solutions, and sustainability. Prior to his government role, he worked as a consultant for multidisciplinary engineering consulting firms. Additionally, he gained experience as a research assistant while pursuing his academic degrees.