What is d-iap?
Explore the main features of the d-iap tool
The Drought Impact Assessment Platform (d-iap) is an advanced global web-based tool designed to evaluate drought impacts on crop and water productivity as well as irrigation water requirements under present and future climate scenarios. Through the integration of diverse methodologies and tools, including the AquaCrop model and comprehensive global and regional databases, d-iap delivers pertinent insights into drought impacts for the main cultivable areas worldwide at a 0.1° x 0.1° (9 x 9 km approx.) resolution for both rainfed and irrigated agricultural systems.
Its intuitive user interface facilitates the exploration and retrieval of various indicators tailored to specific coordinates or regions. Under rainfed conditions, these indicators encompass probabilities at three different levels of yield reduction (mild –less than 30%-, moderate –30 to 70%-, and severe –greater than 70%) due to drought, the associated income losses, and the net irrigation requirements needed to mitigate the effects of drought.
Under irrigated conditions, the platform displays crop-specific net irrigation requirements and associated crop water productivity. Additionally, it provides the probability of meeting crop water needs with a specific irrigation amount. The d-iap assessments are provided across up to 16 different crops, including multiple growing seasons within a year.
These impacts can be evaluated for present climate conditions and future climate projections (mid-century and end-century) under three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs, as defined in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report) scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP3-7.0, SSP5-8.5). To streamline data management, d-iap provides different download formats for the platform outputs across various scales.
Why d-iap?
Understand why a global drought impact assessment platform is needed
Enhancing resilience and adaptation to drought in crop production, both at the farm and regional levels, is a critical challenge that must be addressed. This can be achieved through monitoring and early warning systems, as well as vulnerability and impact assessments. While numerous initiatives, projects, and tools have been developed to support these approaches, the primary focus has been on monitoring and early warning, resulting in several tools dedicated to this purpose. In contrast, vulnerability and impact assessment, despite its importance for drought preparedness, has received less attention. These assessments are crucial as they provide relevant information for making tactical and strategic decisions that can enhance the resilience and adaptation of our agroecosystems to droughts. Existing tools for vulnerability and impact assessment often rely on remote sensing products, statistical indices, and simple models. However, the potential of crop models for these assessments remains largely unexplored. In this context, the AquaCrop model, developed by the FAO, stands out as an excellent tool for evaluating drought impacts on crop production and irrigation water requirements, as it was specifically designed for this purpose. Its use overcomes the limitations of other approaches that often fail to provide a quantitative estimate of losses, focusing solely on the proportion of area affected by drought. Additionally, while some tools based on crop modelling report attainable yields, they are not specifically linked to drought occurrence. The d-iap fills this gap by offering precise assessments of drought-related impacts.
The main advantages of d-iap compared to other tools stem from the use of the AquaCrop model, which includes:
- Providing information on crop specific yield reduction due to drought and associated income losses;
- Estimating the Net Irrigation Requirements needed to mitigate the effects of drought;
- Considering crop phenology as dynamic, with varying water stress sensitivities driven by different stress parameters;
- Evaluating drought impacts under both present and future climate scenarios.
What you can get from d-iap?
Discover the outputs provided by the d-iap tool
d-iap provides relevant indicators to evaluate drought impacts on crop and water productivity as well as irrigation water requirements under present and future climate scenarios. A detailed list of the indicators delivered by d-iap for a specific time period, climate scenario, crop, growing season, and management type (rainfed and irrigated) is provided below.
Rainfed management
1 These indicators are provided in case the decision is made to irrigate. Please note that the levels of drought stress considered are as follows: (a) mild stress – yield is reduced by less than 30%; (b) moderate stress – yield reduction is between 30% to 70%; (c) severe stress – yield is reduced by more than 70%.
Irrigated management
How can d-iap be used?
Understand the potential applications of the tool and its limitations
d-iap applications
The Drought Impact Assessment Platform (d-iap) has been designed to support policymakers, water authorities and managers, agricultural extension services, and stakeholders involved in drought mitigation and adaptation, offering several key applications. The importance of anticipating drought impacts on agricultural systems encompasses both the productive and economic spheres. Furthermore, it becomes crucial in the context of sustainable water resource management and food security, playing a fundamental role in informed decision-making. By estimating how water scarcity will affect crop yields, farmers and technicians can adjust cultivation practices and cropping patterns (in herbaceous crops), optimize water use, and ultimately enhance the resilience of their agricultural systems.
From an economic perspective, anticipating drought impacts is essential for efficiently managing financial resources and minimizing economic losses. Farmers, technicians, and policymakers can make informed decisions about investments, agricultural insurance, and support measures, thereby contributing to the economic sustainability of agriculture in drought-prone regions. Insurance companies would also benefit from this information for properly planning and designing drought insurance policies. Estimates of irrigation demands for each crop under different scenarios, as well as the probability of meeting these demands with a specific water allocation, are key information for stakeholders involved in decision-making related to water management. Based on this information, strategic planning, investment in infrastructure, and water resources management will all contribute to ensuring the sustainable management of water resources, safeguarding agricultural productivity, and maintaining the overall resilience of communities.
d-iap limitations
The d-iap leverages cutting-edge water productivity modelling and the latest global databases to address the complex issue of how drought affects crop yields and irrigation water requirements. However, due to the inherent limitations of crop models and the scarcity and quality of relevant global-scale data, d-iap has the following limitations.
The available global database of cropping patterns is at a national-scale resolution, which may result in assessing the impact of drought on crops in agroecological zones within a country where those crops are not typically grown.
In assessing drought impacts, a single cultivar has been considered for each crop, thus differences among various cultivars regarding growth cycle and other characteristics that affect their responses to water stress are ignored.
The database used for soil properties has limitations regarding soil depth, which can affect the rooting depth and, therefore, the soil water balance.
Groundwater, soil and water salinity, and other stresses, such as nutritional, are not considered because of the lack of proper data on a global scale.