Geography · Ch 6 — Natural Hazards and Disasters
Drought Prone Areas in India
Drought Prone Areas in India
The map is a choropleth of India, shaded to show how drought severity changes across the country. Four categories appear, and the pattern is concentric rather than random: the harshest conditions sit in the northwest, and severity fades outward in rough bands. The eye is drawn first to the darkest zone, a compact patch covering the Thar desert belt of northwest Rajasthan and a thin sliver of Kachchh in Gujarat. This is Zone-1, labelled Extreme. Around it spreads a much larger Zone-2, Severe, which forms a broad central-India band — it sweeps from eastern Rajasthan across most of Madhya Pradesh, dips into eastern Maharashtra, runs through the interiors of Andhra Pradesh and the Karnataka plateau, touches northern interior Tamil Nadu, and reaches up into southern Jharkhand and interior Odisha. Encircling that is Zone-3, Moderate, a ring that takes in northern Rajasthan, Haryana, the southern districts of Uttar Pradesh, the remaining parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra (excluding Konkan), Jharkhand, the Coimbatore plateau of Tamil Nadu, and interior Karnataka. Everything else — the coasts, the northeast, the Himalayan belt, most of peninsular India's edges — is left unshaded as Drought Free Area.
The layout teaches a spatial logic. The extreme zone is not arbitrary: it corresponds to the Marusthali, the region west of the Aravali hills, where districts like Jaisalmer and Barmer receive less than 90 mm of average annual rainfall. The Aravalis act as a climatic divide — the map shows drought intensifying to their west and moderating as you move east and south. The severe and moderate bands are not neat circles but follow rainfall and terrain, bulging into the rain-shadow interiors of the peninsula while sparing the wetter coasts and the Konkan. The map's real lesson is that drought in India is not a single national event but a graded, regional phenomenon: the same monsoon that floods one coast leaves another zone parched, and the severity depends on where you stand relative to the hills, the sea, and the monsoon's path. …
Drought is not a random, isolated event in India — it is a structural feature of the climate itself. Because Indian agriculture leans so heavily on the monsoon, the same atmospheric system that brings floods to one region can leave another completely dry. The result is a country where drought is widespread, but its severity varies sharply from place to place. That variation is what this section maps out.
The Scale of the Problem
Indian agriculture has always been dependent on the monsoon rainfall, and this dependence makes drought and flood the two constant companions of the Indian climate. The numbers make the scale clear. Nearly 19 per cent of the country's total geographical area, and 12 per cent of its total population, suffer from drought every single year. Look at it another way: about 30 per cent of India's total area is identified as drought prone, and this affects around 50 million people.
What makes the situation striking is its simultaneity. While some parts of the country are reeling under floods, other regions face severe drought during the very same period. Even more curious is the seasonal flip — one region can suffer floods in one season and experience drought in the next. The root cause of all this is the large-scale variation and unpredictability in the behaviour of the monsoon. Because the monsoon is so erratic, droughts are widespread and common in most parts of the country. But they are not equally distributed — they are most recurrent and severe in some regions and far less so in others.
Classification of Drought Prone Areas
On the basis of the severity of droughts, India is divided into three categories.
1. Extreme Drought Affected Areas
This is the harshest category. Most parts of Rajasthan fall here, particularly the areas to the west of the Aravali hills — the region known as Marusthali. The Kachchh region of Gujarat is also included. Within this category sit the desert districts of Jaisalmer and Barmer, which receive less than 90 mm of average annual rainfall. That figure alone tells you why this zone is extreme — 90 mm is barely a fraction of what most of the country receives.
2. Severe Drought Prone Areas
This category covers a broad swathe of the country:
- Parts of eastern Rajasthan
- Most parts of Madhya Pradesh
- Eastern parts of Maharashtra
- Interior parts of Andhra Pradesh and the Karnataka Plateau
- Northern parts of interior Tamil Nadu
- Southern parts of Jharkhand
- Interior Odisha
These areas face serious drought, but not quite at the level of the extreme zone.
3. Moderate Drought Affected Areas
The mildest of the three categories includes:
- Northern parts of Rajasthan
- Haryana
- Southern districts of Uttar Pradesh
- The remaining parts of Gujarat (those not already in the extreme zone)
- Maharashtra, except the Konkan region
- Jharkhand
- The Coimbatore plateau of Tamil Nadu
- Interior Karnataka …
Agriculture in India is largely monsoon dependent. Consequently, droughts and floods are the twin features of Indian climate. The problem of droughts is connected with the varying degree of rainfall variability. This becomes clear from the fact that the areas of low rainfall variability generally have a low frequency of droughts, while areas of high rainfall variability have a higher frequency of droughts.
About 19 per cent of the total geographical area of the country and 12 per cent of its total population suffer due to drought every year. About 30 per cent of the country's total area is identified as drought prone affecting around 50 million people. On the basis of severity of droughts, the drought-affected area of India may be divided into the following four regions: Extreme Drought Affected Areas -- most parts of Rajasthan, particularly areas to the west of the Aravali hills, i.e. Marusthali and Kachchh regions of Gujarat come under this category. Most parts of the Marusthali have annual rainfall less than 90 mm. Hence, the entire region, particularly Jaisalmer and Barmer districts of the Indian desert, is the most vulnerable to droughts.
Severe Drought Prone Area -- this region includes parts of eastern Rajasthan, most parts of Madhya Pradesh, eastern parts of Maharashtra, interior parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka plateau, northern parts of interior Tamil Nadu, southern parts of Jharkhand, and interior parts of Odisha. …