A Multi-Criteria GIS Framework for Socio-Economic Drought Risk Assessment across India

Socio-economic drought represents the stage at which water stress translates into tangible disruptions to livelihoods, infrastructure, and economic systems, often preceding severe physical water shortages. In India, pronounced climatic variability combined with extreme physiographic heterogeneity leads to strong spatial contrasts in socio-economic vulnerability to drought. Despite this, most drought assessments in the country remain dominated by hydro-meteorological indicators, with limited integration of socio-economic exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity.
This study develops a spatially explicit socio-economic drought risk assessment framework for India by integrating multi-dimensional climatic, environmental, and socio-economic indicators within a Geographic Information System (GIS). Thirteen indicators capturing water availability, agricultural productivity, infrastructure, population pressure, economic activity, and social deprivation are compiled from multi-source datasets and harmonized to a common spatial resolution. The indicators include available soil water, agricultural yield, livestock density, road density, population density, biomass, electricity consumption, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), global surface water availability, digital elevation model, groundwater availability, land use/land cover, and relative deprivation. Indicator weights are objectively derived using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), with consistency of expert judgments ensured through the consistency ratio criterion (CR < 0.1). A GIS-based weighted overlay approach is then employed to generate a composite socio-economic drought risk index, which is classified into four risk categories to identify spatial patterns and hotspots.
The resulting risk map reveals pronounced regional disparities, highlighting drought-prone agrarian and socio-economically marginalized regions as areas of elevated risk. The proposed framework offers a transferable and scalable decision-support tool for integrating socio-economic dimensions into drought monitoring and preparedness. By explicitly linking water stress to livelihood and infrastructure vulnerability, the study provides actionable insights for risk-informed planning, targeted mitigation, and long-term drought resilience in India.