A study was therefore carried out in India to assess the resilience of terrestrial ecosystem to drought at the district and State level.
Based on data from 2000 to 2014, only 241 of 634 (about 38%) districts were found to be resilient to drought or dry conditions.
While the resilient districts covered nearly 32% of the area of India, the remaining 68% was non-resilient, with the severely non-resilient districts alone covering nearly 30% of India.
In general, districts with predominant forest cover had better resilience than those districts were cropland dominated.
The study found about 75 districts had forest cover that was greater than 40% of the district area, and more than half of such districts were resilient.
“A resilient ecosystem is one which can absorb drought by increasing or maintaining its efficiency to use water to sustain its productivity,” Dr. Goyal said.
Since forests, in general, have greater resilience, most of the districts in the forest-dominated northeast and north India were either resilient or slightly non-resilient.
Despite the dense forest cover in the Western Ghats, Kerala had only about 19% resilience while Sikkim had 100%.
Also, the evapotranspiration is higher in the Western Ghats than in northeast,” Prof. Goyal said.
In general, States in the lower Himalayan regions had higher resilient areas.