Recent development on drought propagation: A comprehensive review

Abstract

Drought is one of the most extensive natural disasters affecting human society. It spreads through land–atmosphere system and hydrological cycle, and evolves into different types of drought, such as hydrological drought, agricultural drought, socio-economic drought, groundwater drought and ecological drought. Extensive recent research has explored classifications, methods, characteristics, driving factors, but gaps remain in summarizing the latest concepts and research methods on drought propagation. Therefore, this study first introduces the types of drought propagation, summarizes the previous and latest drought propagation classifications, and supplements the reviews on the propagation of socioeconomic drought. Secondly, the research methods and the characteristic parameters of drought propagation are summarized, especially the spatial and internal propagation are extended. Thirdly, from the perspective of driving forces for drought propagation, this study summarizes the impact of natural factors (such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, snow, slope, vegetation, etc.) and human factors (such as reservoirs, irrigation, ecological project, urbanization, etc.) on drought propagation. Finally, the challenges of existing research and future research directions of drought propagation are summarized. This study expected to be useful for understanding the mechanism of drought propagation, so as to strengthen drought monitoring and forecasting, improve comprehensive drought resistance and improve water resources management.