WMO Launches Global Guide to Strengthen Drought Impact Monitoring Systems

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has unveiled a major new report titled "Drought Impact Monitoring: Baseline Review of Practices", aimed at closing a longstanding gap in the global response to droughts: the absence of unified guidance for assessing and tracking drought impacts across regions and sectors.

Released under the auspices of the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP)—a joint initiative by the WMO and the Global Water Partnership (GWP)—the report is a vital step in shifting global responses from reactive crisis management to proactive, risk-based resilience strategies. It also contributes to WMO's support of the Early Warnings for All initiative, a United Nations-backed drive to enhance global early warning capabilities by 2027.

Why Drought Monitoring Matters

Droughts are some of the most destructive and least understood natural hazards. From 1970 to 2019, they were responsible for over 700,000 deaths, primarily in Africa, and disproportionately affected women and girls, who often bear the brunt of food and water scarcity in vulnerable communities.

Unlike fast-onset events such as hurricanes or flash floods, droughts develop slowly, may span vast geographical areas, and cause diffuse, cascading effects—from failed harvests and food insecurity to biodiversity loss and economic downturns. Their complexity makes it difficult to define when they start or end, and attributing specific impacts to droughts often proves elusive due to intersecting causes such as climate change, land degradation, and socio-economic vulnerabilities.

A Global Review with Local Insights

The new WMO report:

• Provides a comprehensive overview of how drought impacts are currently monitored around the world.

• Showcases case studies across different contexts—including national, river basin, and sector-specific systems.

• Identifies enablers and best practices, forming a foundation for the eventual development of universal operational guidelines.

Through this global lens, the report also emphasizes the importance of customization—recognizing that effective drought monitoring must be context-sensitive, reflecting local vulnerabilities, ecosystems, governance structures, and community knowledge.

Five Key Recommendations

To make drought monitoring more effective and consistent, the WMO report outlines five main recommendations:

1. Institutionalize Drought Impact Monitoring: Governments should embed monitoring systems into national risk management frameworks and development plans to ensure consistency, continuity, and political support.

2. Leverage Diverse Data Sources: A combination of quantitative methods like remote sensing and satellite imagery with qualitative data such as field surveys and indigenous knowledge provides a fuller picture of drought impacts.

3. Foster Cross-sector Collaboration: Governments, NGOs, academic institutions, and local communities should work together to capture drought’s multi-dimensional nature, which affects water supply, agriculture, health, biodiversity, and more.

4. Enhance Data Access and Usability: Open-access databases and decision-support tools are crucial for empowering planners, emergency responders, and communities with timely, accurate information.

5. Tailor Systems to Local Needs: Countries and communities must adapt methods and build capacity to develop drought monitoring systems that respond to their unique environmental and socio-economic conditions.

From Monitoring to Action

The report represents not just an assessment, but a call to action. The global community has made strides in meteorological forecasting, but these must now be matched with better systems for tracking human and ecological impacts. This transition is especially vital as climate change increases both the frequency and severity of drought events worldwide.

“Effective drought monitoring is not just about measuring rainfall deficits or soil moisture,” the report notes. “It’s about understanding vulnerability, informing targeted responses, and building long-term resilience.”

Next Steps: Toward Operational Guidelines

The WMO and its partners are using the insights from this review to draft global operational guidelines that will assist countries—particularly developing nations—with establishing and enhancing their drought monitoring capabilities. These guidelines are expected to be released as part of WMO’s multi-year effort to support the UN’s global goal of providing early warning systems for all by 2027.

A Timely Intervention

With climate change intensifying weather extremes, and 2023 and 2024 among the hottest years on record, drought is becoming a growing threat not only to Africa but to countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The WMO’s new report could prove a game-changer by standardizing and strengthening how we measure and manage one of the world’s most complex disasters.