Establishing citizen science drought impacts monitoring in Northeast Brazil: what for and how?

Drought impacts monitoring is largely a global blind spot in the assessment and management of drought. Drought monitoring almost exclusively focuses on hydrometeorological and remote sensing indices, which are used as a proxy for the severity of drought. But the severity of a drought depends on how it is experienced by people, economic sectors and ecosystems. There are context-specific drivers that cause, aggravate or lessen drought impacts that are beyond the scope of hydrometeorological and remote sensing monitoring. Therefore, we propose that citizen science can provide this vital dataset. Such monitoring from the perspective of the affected citizens can reveal when and how different areas, sectors and stakeholders experience drought impacts to enable targeted research and development of equitable drought risk management strategies.

The Brazilian Drought Monitor is a monthly map of drought condition, which is particularly relevant in the semiarid northeast of Brazil, utilised to orient politics and public action towards proactive drought management. The Brazilian Drought Monitor mobilises a number of observers and validators, but its capacity to monitor drought impacts is limited, particularly its capacity to more deeply involve local actors. Therefore, FUNCEME, together with Wageningen University and CIRAD, are investigating the establishment of citizen science drought impacts monitoring with two main objectives: i) complementing the institutional conventional monitoring; and ii) revealing local understanding, impacts and preoccupations with drought. The overall aim is to produce a more hybrid knowledge and understanding of socio-hydrological dimensions of drought. We present the first investigations and actions implemented in Ceará State linking institutional (hydrometeorologist) and local actors in an information loop communicating both drought impacts and drought risk management strategies.