Integrated mapping of groundwater drought risk in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region

Groundwater drought denotes the condition and hazard during a prolonged meteorological drought when groundwater resources decline and become unavailable or inaccessible for human use. Groundwater drought risk refers to the combined physical risk and human vulnerability associated with diminished gro...

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Published inHydrogeology journal Vol. 21; no. 4; pp. 863 - 885
Main Authors Villholth, Karen G., Tøttrup, Christian, Stendel, Martin, Maherry, Ashton
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin/Heidelberg Springer-Verlag 01.06.2013
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Aquatic Pollution
Climate change
Communities
Drought
Droughts
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Environmental impact
Environmental risk
Geographic information systems
Geology
Geophysics/Geodesy
Groundwater
Groundwater availability
Human
Hydrogeology
Hydrology
Hydrology/Water Resources
Management
Mapping
Risk
Waste Water Technology
Water Management
Water Pollution Control
Water Quality/Water Pollution
Water resources
Water resources management
Africa
Groundwater drought
Climate change
Risk mapping
Africa
Geographic information systems
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Summary:Groundwater drought denotes the condition and hazard during a prolonged meteorological drought when groundwater resources decline and become unavailable or inaccessible for human use. Groundwater drought risk refers to the combined physical risk and human vulnerability associated with diminished groundwater availability and access during drought. An integrated management support tool, GRiMMS, is presented, for the mapping and assessment of relative groundwater drought risk in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Based on composite mapping analysis of region-wide gridded relative indices of meteorological drought risk, hydrogeological drought proneness and human groundwater drought vulnerability, the mapping results highlight consistent areas across the region with highest groundwater drought risk and populations in the order of 39 million at risk of groundwater drought at present. Projective climate-model results suggest a potentially significant negative impact of climate change on groundwater drought risk. The tool provides a means for further attention to the key, but neglected, role of groundwater in drought management in Africa.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
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ISSN:1431-2174
1435-0157
DOI:10.1007/s10040-013-0968-1