Drought Assessment in Potwar Region, Punjab Pakistan During 1981–2019

A severe natural disaster, drought affects the economy, the ecology, and many other areas on a global scale. For the Potwar region (PR) in Punjab, Pakistan, drought indicators (DIs), including deciles, the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI), and the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI), were computed using the DrinC programme. Drought conditions were predicted for the next 12, 9, and 3 months. Eight of the last 39 years have seen a severe drought, according to DIs created using the deciles technique, and such cycles repeat every 2–7 years. Similar trends were visible as deciles in both the RDI and SPI indices. However, for RDI and SPI, the extremely dry and severely dry classes only persisted for two years, whereas the years that affected the other deciles were typically and moderately dry. Deciles are less useful for assessing the severity of the drought than SPI. Based on a regression study that shows a connection between the RDI and SPI indices, the yearly RDI may be predicted if the first three months of precipitation are known. This research can help future development strategies tackle sensitive drought occurrences, their mitigation, and their socioeconomic repercussions.