Drought woes spread across India despite revival of monsoon rains

India is facing widespread drought stress despite intense rainfall and flood-like situations in parts of the country, with satellite and soil-moisture assessments showing growing agricultural stress as the kharif season enters a critical phase.

As of 12 August, as much as 64 per cent of India’s agricultural area was experiencing drought stress due to insufficient rainfall, according to satellite imagery from the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s CREAMS Lab. The affected area was 38 per cent higher than during the same period last year.

Separately, the India Drought Monitor maintained by IIT Gandhinagar showed that more than a third of the country’s total land area was under different categories of drought as August began. Scientists tracking soil moisture said drought conditions were likely to persist across large parts of the country over the coming month, including some areas that have already received rainfall.

India had received 12 per cent less rainfall than normal as of 11 August, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The CREAMS Lab put the cumulative rainfall deficit at 13 per cent from 1 June to 14 August, with the East and Northeast recording a 27 per cent deficit and the Southern Peninsula 20 per cent.

The rainfall deficit is putting pressure on standing crops. India has completed 92 per cent of its normal kharif sowing, while deficient rains have reduced the kharif sown area by 2.1 million hectares. Ragi recorded the biggest decline in sowing at 34 per cent, followed by tur at 4.03 per cent, rice at 3.65 per cent and soybean at 1.44 per cent.

The CREAMS Lab report said Punjab, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Tamil Nadu were among the major food-producing states facing extreme drought conditions.

According to the India Drought Monitor, the states with the highest shares of land under drought were Sikkim at 80.8 per cent, Arunachal Pradesh at 78.3 per cent, Andhra Pradesh at 72.4 per cent, Mizoram at 68 per cent, Goa at 67.9 per cent and Delhi at 65.2 per cent.

Northeast India was the worst affected region, with around 58 per cent of its area under drought, followed by West India at 43 per cent and South India at 40 per cent. North, East and Central India each had about 34 per cent of their areas under drought, while Northwest India was comparatively less affected at around 11 per cent.

Heavy rain, but little lasting soil moisture

Scientists said the apparent contradiction between heavy rainfall and widespread drought was largely due to the uneven distribution and short-lived nature of rainfall.

Karthikeyan Lanka, associate professor at IIT Bombay and principal investigator of the institute’s All India Experimental Agricultural Drought Forecasts, said researchers were seeing an unusual “swing” in drought conditions, with some locations moving briefly out of drought after rainfall before returning to drought conditions.

“There has been a pattern where rain does fall — sometimes heavily — but doesn’t translate into sustained root-zone moisture. ‘Momentarily soil will be wet, but then there will be long dry periods,’ Lanka said.”

His team at IIT Bombay’s Ecohydrology Group tracks soil moisture along with rainfall, temperature, vegetation, vapour pressure deficit and evapotranspiration. Its forecasts use soil-moisture data from the SMAP satellite, along with IMD and ERA5 datasets.

The team’s forecasts for 3-9 August, 10-16 August, 17-23 August and 24-30 August show severe-to-exceptional drought categories persisting across parts of the Indo-Gangetic belt and peninsula.

Satellite observations generally measure moisture in the top 5 cm of soil, which can respond rapidly to rainfall and dry out quickly. Lanka and his team are also tracking moisture through the top 100 cm, or root zone, where they are observing similar fluctuations.

“The root zone is normally far more stable. But we are seeing swings happening even at the root-zone level,” Lanka said.

The CREAMS Lab also identified soil-water shortages and rainfall deficits as major contributors to dryness, particularly across parts of Central, Western and Peninsular India. Satellite imagery showed emerging vegetation and signs of evaporative stress, indicating localised crop moisture deficiency.

Kharif losses could affect rabi season

The immediate concern is the impact on kharif crops, which are now at critical growth stages. Persistent or recurring dry spells can reduce yields even if total seasonal rainfall eventually approaches normal levels.

“There may be crop yield loss in kharif,” Lanka said.

The impact could extend into the rabi season if farmers increase groundwater extraction to compensate for inadequate rainfall during the kharif crop cycle.

“If farmers increase groundwater pumping to compensate for inadequate rainfall and meet kharif crop water requirements, groundwater reserves could come under additional stress, with consequences for the rabi season,” the IIT Bombay assessment said.

The forecast noted that adaptation and contingency planning for rabi may need to begin now, particularly in regions where drought is expected to persist, with decisions on crop choice, sowing windows, irrigation and water availability becoming important.

The extent of the drought stress varies with soil type, including how efficiently soil absorbs and retains water and how much rainfall is lost as runoff. IIT Bombay researchers said sharp fluctuations were particularly visible in parts of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, southern Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, while parts of Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab and Haryana had experienced persistent soil-moisture deficits for weeks.