Mapping Agricultural Drought Vulnerability at a Regional Level Using GIS—A Case Study

Drought is a highly complicated yet least understood of all the other natural disasters. It is due to the lack of rain and shortfall of humidity. The existence of the farming drought’s early warning framework can be remarkably valuable in a call for enhancing the drought readiness and to reduce the impacts of drought. During this examination, a GIS-based method was used for assessment of horticultural drought susceptibility for the hydropower undertakings of Larji watershed of Kullu region. Larji hydropower project (126 MW) undertaking was planned to be built in June 1984 on Beas River as a power advancement plot and in a tender to outfit the massive hydropower potential available in the State. Binwa watershed, located in Kangra area of Himachal Pradesh, comprises of a stroke of Lesser Himalayas and Shivalikrough inclines. The key indices that are to be assessed to describe the farming drought susceptibility are Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Land Use Land Cover (LULC), and Land Surface Temperature (LST). According to the drought’s impact aspect due to these indices, the weight is specified. On account of the weights, overlay analysis is set up to provide drought susceptibility zones in the investigation. Thematic maps of every index will be formed using GIS software based on allowed loads. The results of the indices are such as NDVI ranges from − 0.1968 to + 0.625, LST varies from − 9.88 to 44.18, NDWI ranges between − 0.224 and + 0.278, and the Land Use Land Cover classification classified the forest cover, degraded forest, fallow land, barren land, and glacier. Based on the weights given, the study shows drought susceptibility’s steps in the region with a reasonable range of values. This is a startling issue because it is in the perennial river’s downstream locale and Larji dam. The guide that arises out of this local drought susceptibility can facilitate leaders to generate valuable farming drought mitigation tactics.