Mind the gap: misalignment between drought monitoring and community realities

Kchouk, Sarra; Cavalcante, Louise; Melsen, Lieke A.; Walker, David W.; Ribeiro Neto, Germano; Gondim, Rubens; Smolenaars, Wouter J.; van Oel, Pieter R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-893-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-893-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Drought, society, and ecosystems (NHESS/BG/GC/HESS inter-journal...

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-893-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 2

Research article

|

27 Feb 2025

Research article |

| 27 Feb 2025

Mind the gap: misalignment between drought monitoring and community realities

Sarra Kchouk, Louise Cavalcante, Lieke A. Melsen, David W. Walker, Germano Ribeiro Neto, Rubens Gondim, Wouter J. Smolenaars, and Pieter R. van Oel

Data sets

Data underlyling the publication: Mind the Gap: Misalignment Between Drought Monitoring and Community Realities Sarra Kchouk et al. https://doi.org/10.4121/6edb96df-569e-41e8-9e6c-ba0a324c4729.v1

Short summary

Droughts impact water and people, yet monitoring often overlooks impacts on people. In northeastern Brazil, we compare official data to local experiences, finding data mismatches and blind spots. Mismatches occur due to the data's broad scope missing finer details. Blind spots arise from ignoring diverse community responses and vulnerabilities to droughts. We suggest enhanced monitoring by technical extension officers for both severe and mild droughts.