Icts in Support of Micro-level Drought Preparedness: a Framework to Support Rural Farm Families with Information Management and Rural Knowledge Centers

Drought and desertification are serious problems that significantly affect hundreds of millions of people and ecosystems. When drought occurs, the farm communities are usually the first affected because of their heavy dependence on the stored soil water. If the rainfall deficiencies continue, even people who are not directly engaged in agriculture will be affected by drought. This underscores the vulnerability of entire societies to this phenomenon; this vulnerability varies significantly from one nation to another. Although crisis management approach is routinely followed approach for providing relief, the studies on drought, carried out in different parts of the world, suggested that preparedness is better than relief and information is backbone of drought preparedness. However, the efforts have been taken for generating drought preparedness framework is least understood until recent years. A series of experiments have been conducted to develop a drought preparedness framework that uses ICTs, information management methods and rural knowledge centers to combine early warning arrangements with appropriate support services. The book describes the details.