Drought Risk Reduction in a Changing Climate: The Role of Early Warning Systems (EWS), The Case of Iran

In recent years, concern has grown worldwide that droughts may be increasing in frequency, severity, and duration given changing climatic conditions and documentedincreased in extreme climate events. A warmer climate with increasing climate variability will increase the risk of climate extremes. Climate variability and extremeweather events threaten many populations throughout the world, and evidences indicate that in many regions, the variability and extreme events are increasing .Iran’s precipitation is approximately one third of the global average and distribution of themonthly rainfall has been changed in recent years. Water scarcity has many environmental and socio-economic impacts on Iran. By increasing global meantemperature, drought and water storages have become critical issues. This situation may even become more significant in those countries where the volume of rainfall is limited.Occurrence of drought is one of the main reasons of water crisis . Early warning systems (EWS) in such contexts are needed not only for event onset at which a threshold isexceeded but also for intensification and duration ranging temporally from a season todecades . Implementation of a drought early warning system is the most important priority for Iran Meteorological Organization.The aim of this research is to produce knowledge-base to build capacity for improved national climatic services ,drought risk reduction strategies in agriculture and waterresource sector .Produced scientific information would help policy makers to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies. So far the successes gained illustrate that effective early warning depends upon a multisectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration among all concerned actors at each stage inthe warning process from monitoring to response and evaluation. The method of this research is descriptive and analytical .library studies have assisted the authors .This paper discusses the underlying concepts of drought, the principles andobjectives of national drought policies and the drought planning process that have been effective in the preparation of drought mitigation plans .Action identification at the relevant scales for decision making in response to a changing climate is another challenge of this analysis.

کلیدواژه ها:

Iran ، Drought ، Risk Assessment ، Risk Management ، RiskReduction ، Early Warning Systems(EWS)