To what extent are a country’s economy, people, and infrastructure able to cope with drought and how can they do better? That is what the latest initiative of IDRA looks to answer, as 75% of Earth’s land has become permanently drier in the last three decades and drought is driving forced displacement, disrupting shipping, and hampering food and energy production around the world.
The International Drought Resilience Observatory (IDRO), the first global AI-driven platform for proactive drought management, unveiled its prototype at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Riyadh, which laid the groundwork for a future global drought regime.
As the tool enters its final development phase ahead of the next UN land conference, which will take place in Mongolia in 2026, IDRO developers and partners break down what sets the Observatory apart, how it fits with existing drought-related initiatives, and why it matters for climate change adaptation.
What kind of insights does IDRO provide?
IDRO sheds light on the capacity of territories to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to drought from various perspectives —built environments, natural environments, communities, and the economy. By selecting different variables, users from the global to the local level can generate visualizations to understand where the pain points are and set priorities for action.
“With IDRO, authorities and land and water managers will be able to analyze and visualize key drought resilience indicators as the basis for better decisions,” says UNCCD Senior Advisor Edgar Gutiérrez-Espeleta.
Importantly, users needn’t be specialists to use, and draw value from, the tool, which can support interventions across global, regional, country, and local scales.
Why do we need an International Drought Resilience Observatory?
“We must move from merely assessing drought risks towards building resilience,” says Andrea Toreti, senior scientist at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (EC- JRC), who coordinates the Copernicus European and Global Drought Observatories. “This is precisely IDRO’s added value: helping to quantify and evaluate the drought resilience status of a place to inform action on the ground.”
The confirmation of 2024 as the warmest year on record highlights the growing urgency to turn science and data into policies and policies into action.
“Simply put, we cannot adapt to climate change without building drought resilience,” says Roger Pulwarty, Senior Scientist at the Physical Sciences Laboratory of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).