Integrated drought causality, hazard, and vulnerability assessment for future socioeconomic scenarios: An information theory perspective

Drought properties and the socioeconomic impact it makes are expected to increase in the coming years due to climate change. Here we review the possible impacts of changes in climate variability on the properties of different drought types. The downscaled and bias-corrected data from five general circulation models (GCMs) were used to produce an ensemble of precipitation, temperature, and wind speed, through a relative entropy approach and were used for drought analysis. A novel Multivariate Drought Index was then employed for an integrated quantification of all physical forms of drought. We studied the spatial patterns of drought properties and performed multivariate frequency analysis for each planning region in Texas to recognize the distribution of potential drought hazard areas under climate change impact by formulating a Drought Hazard Index. A drought vulnerability assessment was also carried out by taking into consideration various socioeconomic factors, leading to the development of socioeconomic Drought Vulnerability Index. A set of composite drought risk maps that combines hazard and vulnerability analysis were developed. This study also explored the cause-effect relationship between the drought events and several hydroclimatic triggers. A transfer entropy measure was used to quantify the causal relationships, thus indicating the predominant future drought triggers. Overall, the findings are expected to help achieve an effective drought mitigation strategy for the state of Texas.