Singh et al. (2025) Agricultural catchments exhibit enhanced climate and drought resilience compared to forested catchments in Peninsular India

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Hydrology
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-20
• Authors: Akriti Singh, Ashutosh Sharma
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134618

Research Groups

Department of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India

Short Summary

This study assesses the drought and climate resilience of 116 catchments across 14 basins in Peninsular India, revealing that agricultural catchments with higher crop fraction and irrigation exhibit greater resilience compared to forested catchments, challenging traditional hypotheses.

Objective

• To assess the drought resilience and climate resilience of 116 catchments across 14 basins in Peninsular India and identify the underlying drivers of these resilience characteristics.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: 116 catchments across 14 basins in Peninsular India.
• Temporal Scale: Analysis of both short-term extreme events (droughts) and long-term climate variability.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Drought propagation time (for drought resilience) and theoretical Budyko Framework based hydrological elasticity (for climate resilience).
• Data sources: Not explicitly detailed in the provided text, but implied to include hydrological, meteorological, land use, and anthropogenic modification data for Peninsular India.

Main Results

• Catchments in tropical climates, predominantly covered by trees, exhibited rapid drought propagation (less than 6 months), indicating lower drought resilience.
• Spatial variation in elasticity showed that 57 % of catchments in the Mahanadi Basin, 38 % in the Godavari Basin, and 30 % in the Narmada Basin had elasticity below 1, signifying non-resilient behavior to climate variability.
• Only 33.6 % of the studied catchments were found to be both climate and drought resilient (CR-DR).
• Contrary to traditional hypotheses, high tree cover and precipitation did not necessarily enhance drought or climate resilience; instead, catchments with higher crop fraction and irrigation percentage demonstrated greater climate and drought resilience.

Contributions

• Offers a novel perspective by integrating both long-term climate impacts (climate variability) and short-term climate impacts (droughts) in assessing catchment resilience.
• Challenges the traditional view that high tree cover enhances resilience, demonstrating that agricultural catchments with irrigation can exhibit greater climate and drought resilience in Peninsular India.
• Supports the identification of more effective sustainable management strategies by considering distinct aspects and implications of climate change.

Funding

Not explicitly detailed in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Singh2025Agricultural,
  author = {Singh, Akriti and Sharma, Ashutosh},
  title = {Agricultural catchments exhibit enhanced climate and drought resilience compared to forested catchments in Peninsular India},
  journal = {Journal of Hydrology},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134618},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134618}
}