Physical Exposure to Drought
Drought is a phenomenon that affects more people globally than any other natural hazard. Unlike aridity, which refers to a semi-permanent condition of low precipitation (desert regions), drought results from the accumulated effect of deficient precipitation over a prolonged period of time.
The units used in this product refer to the expected average annual population (2010 as the year of reference) exposed (inhabitants). The dataset includes an estimate of the annual physical exposure to drought. It is based on three sources:
1) A global monthly gridded precipitation dataset obtained from the Climatic
Research Unit (University of East Anglia).
2) A GIS modelling of global Standardized Precipitation Index based on Brad Lyon (IRI, Columbia University).
3) A population grid for the year 2010, provided by LandScanTM Global Population Database (Oak Ridge National Laboratory).
This product was designed by UNEP/GRID Europe for the Global Assessment Report on Risk Reduction (GAR). It was modeled using global data.
Credit: GIS processing UNEP/GRID Europe. http://preview.grid.unep.ch
