Abstract
Due to increased impact of drought on water availability at different scales there is need to understand droughts especially in upper Tana River basin which is a critical and largest water system in Kenya. There is need to correlate trends of drought as influenced by the climate variability of the present times. Drought frequency, duration and intensity in the basin have been increasing. The influencing hydro-meteorological parameters and their interaction are necessary in developing measures for mitigating impacts of droughts. It is important to have a timely review of drought definitions and fundamental concepts of droughts, classification of droughts, types of drought indices, historical droughts and artificial neural networks with special focus of Kenyan a basin. Out of the review, this paper draws conclusions where gaps for more focused research especially for a typical river basin in Kenya exist. By developing effective drought forecasting tool for on-set detection and drought classification and drought forecasting, information on decision making on matters of drought preparedness and mitigation programmes will be available for proper water resources management.
Highlights
Drought is one of the critical natural disasters that adversely affect people, river basins, water resource systems and ecosystems [1]
The findings showed no significant differences between the outputs of Recursive Multi-Step Neural Network (RMSNN) and Direct Multi-Step Neural Network (DMSNN) when used for forecasting of PHSI [56]
The present study aimed at identifying the effects of drought, available methods of drought forecasting and gaps in drought studies in upper Tana River basin
Summary
Drought is one of the critical natural disasters that adversely affect people, river basins, water resource systems and ecosystems [1]. It has been may be defined as a hydro-meteorological event on land characterized by temporary and recurring water scarcity. Four distinct types of droughts namely; meteorological, agricultural, hydrological and socio-economic are recognised These droughts have either direct or indirect impacts on river basins. Droughts in Kenya have impacted adversely on rain fed agriculture, water resources, hydropower generation and ecosystems. Effective drought forecast allow water resource decision makers to develop drought preparedness plans Such plans are critical for advance formulation of programmes to mitigate drought-related environmental, social and economic impacts. Accurate drought assessment and forecasting with an adequate lead time is paramount for formulation of mitigation measures in river basins [10]
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