Urban drought in India under observed and projected future climate

Urban areas in India are growing rapidly with more than 50% of total population is projected to be in cities by 2050. Like many other major urban areas in the global, cities in India have experienced water shortage during the recent decades. Using observed and projected precipitation and temperature, we provide a first ever assessment of drought in the top hundred urban areas in India. We use observed climate data from India Meteorological Department (IMD) for the 1951-2016 period to estimate changes in precipitation, potential evapotranspiration (PET), drought frequency, aridity, and number of rainy days. We find that aridity has increased in many urban areas while number of rainy days have declined significantly during 1951-2016. We used downscaled and biascorrected data from the CMIP5 models to estimated projected changes in drought frequency and water availability in the future climate. We find that drought frequency and aridity are projected to rise under the warming climate in urban areas in India. Our results provide insights for urban water management under the current and projected future climate.