Hydrological Drought – 12 lessons learned in 12 minutes

In this presentation, I highlight key lessons learned following a career within drought research. From its start with focus on low flows in the 1990'ties to the definition of hydrological drought and its spatial and temporal patterns in more recent work - it has been an interesting and learning journey. A period that coincides with an increasing awareness of drought as a natural hazard at the local, regional and continental scale. It is also a period when the influence of climate change on the hydrological cycle, water resources and extremes, became prominent. Accordingly, time series could no longer be assumed stationary, which had been the basis for our hydrological training at the time, and the research focus shifted from more traditional hydrological analysis to the detection, attribution and projection of the climate change signal on hydrology. When analyzing drought and its wide range of impacts, it is important to distinguish between the different types of droughts, and when analyzing changes and trends, it is important to distinguish between natural variability and changes due to climate change or human interventions. How drought is defined and perceived in different sectors and regions across the world influences the choice of methodology and how the results are interpreted and communicated. The importance of drought terminology and awareness of the diversity in drought behavior - within and among regions - are aspects that have been essential throughout my research and that I will reflect upon in my talk.