The drought forecasting tool is a service very relevant to monitoring and evaluation for two reasons.
Databank for evaluating policy impacts on water, soil, and climate: The tool creates a valuable databank for many evaluation exercises. The EO data, the soil and weather data and the land use and land cover data collected for estimating the drought indices can be used to evaluate the impacts of policies and measures on water, soil and climate, and the corresponding impact result indicators. All these data are linked to LPIS and IACS. Therefore, beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of various measures targeting water and soil conservation can be identified. These data can support the adoption of more sophisticated and advanced evaluation techniques to approximate the net impacts of the assessed actions.
Evaluation of risk management schemes: The tool provides another perspective on drought risk and related risk management. Especially in semi-arid agricultural areas where droughts may be a critical component to farm resilience, especially when viewed with extreme climate change events. Also, droughts impact the biophysical environment, including nutrient concentrations in water bodies and the risk of contamination and soil exposure to erosion if followed by heavy rain.
The drought forecasting tool has been validated at the stage of ‘proof-of-concept’ in the Guadalquivir case study in Andalucia, Spain. The lead partner’s contact person provides the tool and the associated data upon request.