The increasing frequency and severity of droughts and floods is of global concern. IWMI is finding ways to increase countries’ resilience to both phenomena, helping farmers whose livelihoods are negatively affected by too little or too much water. Among the Institute’s achievements towards these goals in 2016 were: testing of the South Asia Drought Monitoring System (SADMS) and generation of estimates for crop yield forecasts for insurers; creation of an index-based flood insurance product to ensure that affected farmers get compensation for failed crops; and development of a “crop health card” system to verify weather-based insurance claims.

“Many governments have signed global agreements, such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the SDGs,” explains Giriraj Amarnath, leader of IWMI’s Water Risks research group. “SDGs 1 and 2 are about ending poverty and hunger. If you want to achieve those, you need to increase resilience to disasters first through drought mitigation, flood proofing and making agricultural livelihoods resilient to climate change. We are trying to link our work on droughts and floods to the global sustainable development agenda and the Sendai Framework.”

Watching out for drought

Conceived in 2014, the SADMS is an international collaboration that seeks to improve resilience and responses to drought. Every eight days, IWMI produces drought severity maps from satellite data, using parameters such as vegetation, soil moisture, temperature and rainfall.

During 2015 and 2016, the Institute worked to test and ground truth the system, at the country and state levels, with the aim of demonstrating its potential value to governments. Researchers also made the system available through an online portal. They were subsequently asked to collaborate on a project with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to assess the potential of using the drought maps in management plans.

Proof for payment

Many countries are now using index-based weather insurance to compensate farmers if climatic events ruin their crops. In 2016, IWMI launched its Index-Based Flood Insurance (IBFI) product, which is designed to safeguard farmers in locations at high risk of flooding. IBFI combines hydrological and hydraulic modelling with newly available high-resolution satellite images from the European Space Agency. Rainfall data for the relevant catchment are added to the model, which shows how runoff will travel and collect. If a trigger level is reached (calculated using 35 years of hydrological data), satellite images are used to verify the depth and duration of the flood. This accurately identifies the farmers that are eligible for compensation.

IBFI is particularly aimed at regions that suffer from frequent floods caused by rain falling outside their national or state boundaries. In 2017, IWMI will conduct a pilot project involving 1,000 households in 30 villages in the Indian state of Bihar. The plan is to test IBFI during the monsoon season from June to October. A subsidized public-private partnership model will be tested at the micro level, where individual farmers buy the insurance, and also at the meso level, where a group of farmers is insured jointly and receives subsidy support from the government. A similar project is planned for Bangladesh.

IWMI is currently developing an index-based drought insurance product as well. This will use satellite data to show levels of soil moisture in the top 15-30 centimeters of the soil, with farmers being compensated if the moisture level drops below a particular value.

Report cards on crop health

For such products to work, it is important that involved companies have confidence in the science used to underpin the insurance. In the past, some weather-based insurance products relied on low-resolution satellite data, which could not pinpoint affected fields very accurately. Therefore, IWMI developed a crop health card combining satellite images and photos in an easy-to-understand format to demonstrate the accuracy of the IBFI product.

“Using satellite images of fields before and after a flood, it is possible to show by the color of the field whether there were healthy crops that have been destroyed by the flood,” says Amarnath. “It can help to ensure eligible farmers are compensated as well as in preventing fraud. Our goal is to encourage governments to invest in insurance by subsidizing schemes before disaster strikes.”