Developing an Integrated Drought Monitoring System Based on Socioeconomic Drought in a Transboundary River Basin: A Case Study

Drought monitoring system (DMS) is a key tool in drought management and preparedness planning. Selection of suitable and appropriate drought indicators which are applied in drought prediction and motivation of drought action plans is the significant component of a DMS. Socioeconomic effects of in drought-influenced regions, is the main issue related to drought management especially in developing countries. Unlike the other types of drought such as meteorological, agricultural and hydrological drought, less attention is paid to this kind of drought and there are few indicators for socioeconomic drought severity quantification. In this paper a new methodology is presented, in order to develop an integrated socioeconomic drought indicator based on economic-hydrology vulnerability index and available agricultural water index in a region. This indicator is applied to prepare a DMS for Sistan delta, located at the southeast of Iran, where application of other types of drought indicators has many limitations. Sistan delta is located in an inland delta of a transboundary river basin, Hirmand. The region suffers from long period water shortages while dependency of region on water of a transboundary river increases the severity of water shortages. Results show that this new indicator can reflect the state of drought related to social and economic situation of region and it is capable to be used as an indicator in motivating drought preparation plan.