1.2.2Active indicatorDrought
1.1Heat and health
1.2Health and extreme weather-related events
1.3Climate suitability for infectious disease transmission
Indicator 1.2.2 · Hazards
Drought
Climate change alters hydrological cycles, often making dry areas drier and wet areas wetter. Drought poses multiple risks for health, threatening water security, sanitation and hygiene, food security, enhancing the risk of wildfires, and favouring the spread of disease. Gendered roles in water collection also means women and girls are often disproportionately affected by water scarcity. This indicator tracks the change in meteorological drought, defined by temperature and precipitation trends, and land water storage.
Headline finding
In 2016-25, 41.7% of global land area was affected by at least one month of extreme drought annually on average, up by 13.3 percentage points compared to 2006-15
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Figure 1
Land Affected by Extreme Droughts
Percentage of land area affected by at least one, three, or six months of extreme drought, shown globally and by country, Human Development Index group and Lancet Countdown region, from 1980 to 2025.
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Figure 2
Annual Months of Extreme Drought
Change in the average number of months per year affected by extreme drought in 2016–2025, compared to 1981–2020
Please reference the 2026 Report of the Lancet Countdown if using this data • For a full description of the indicator, see the 2026 report of the Lancet Countdown at lancetcountdown.org
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Figure 3
Global Water Storage Trends and Extremes
Country-averaged long-term trends in total terrestrial water storage (cm/year), observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites from January 2003 to December 2025, and the mean percentage change in land area under dry and wet conditions between 2006–2015 and 2016–2025, shown by country, WHO region and Lancet Countdown region.
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About this indicator
Description
This indicator has two parts. Part (1) tracks the proportion of global land area affected by unusually severe droughts using the 6-month Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI6), which captures drought intensity and duration by comparing precipitation against potential evapotranspiration. Using ERA5-Land data from 1980 onwards, droughts are classified against a 1981–2020 baseline, and the indicator reports land area exposed to excess extreme and exceptional drought events each year. Part (2) measures total terrestrial water storage from GRACE satellite observations, representing all water stored on and beneath the land surface, including soil moisture, surface water, groundwater, snow, and ice.
Authors
Part 2
Prof. Mohammad Shamsudduha
Data downloads
Caveats
This indicator captures the impacts of climate change on meteorological drought and to a certain extent hydrological drought, but not agricultural drought. It does not measure the direct relationship between a drought and affected populations. It is not possible to do a population-based weighting because many people affected by a drought may not live in the area affected, e.g., in the case of droughts affecting agricultural areas (which are generally sparsely populated) with impacts on the food supply.
This indicator was last updated in September 2026
Data sources
Part 1
- ERA5-Land reanalysis data, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS)
Part 2
- The GRACE/GRACE-FO Mascon monthly dataset (product version RL06.3; data span: April 2002 to January 2026), the Center for Space Research (CSR), 2026