Identification of water requirement to ameliorate future drought events: approach with CMIP6 climatic models

Drought depends upon many factors such as lack of precipitation, sunshine duration, and altitude. In this study, future rainfall trend pattern was studied, and an attempt was made to quantify the amount of rainfall deficit to cause drought occurrence and corresponding required water for the recovery of future drought. The non-standardized anomaly index (AI) was used to quantify the water deficit for future drought event, which is based on CMIP 6 climatic model generated rainfall data under the four different shared socioeconomic pathways’ (SSPs) scenarios (SSP 1–2.6, SSP 2–4.5, SSP 3–7.0, and SSP 5–8.5) for the chosen study area (the upper Tapti River basin in central India). Our study found out that the future rainfall pattern would be an increasing trend for all the SSPs scenarios up to the end of the twenty-first century. Particularly, SSP 5–8.5 scenario projected increasing rainfall pattern and more number of drought events than other SSPs. In specific season, the future monsoon season showed more number of drought events. The water required for drought recovery was found increased from SSP 1–2.6 to SSP 5–8.5 scenario. The results presented in this study are helpful to adopt drought management activity in response to changing rainfall pattern under climate change aspect.