Specific mitigation actions to reduce short and long-term drought risks

The dry areas of the Mediterranean face severe and growing challenges due to the rapidly growing demand for water resources. New resources of water are increasingly expensive to exploit, thus limiting the potential for expansion of new water supplies. In the region, the complexity in the water resources situation is not only due to water scarcity, but also to the severe and long-lasting drought conditions that more and more frequently occur in most of arid countries in the region. Climate change and its uncertainty, that have so far filled our thoughts, are nowadays well felt and clearly appearing in the Mediterranean with the sequences of higher temperature, extreme rainfall or drought. The causes of drought in the Mediterranean region are very complex; however, whatever the reasons may be for drought, its environmental and socio-economic impacts stem not only from the duration, severity, and spatial extent of the precipitation deficit, but also, to a large extent, from the environmental, social and economic vulnerability of affected regions. In the Mediterranean, water scarcity due to drought needs appropriate approaches that are to focus on identifying and ranking the priorities of relevant drought impacts. Carrying this process is fundamental to decide on the specific mitigation actions that can be taken to reduce short and long-term drought risks. Such actions will differ from one place to the other and have to be tailored to cope with the prevailing conditions by straightforw ard and practical tools for drought management and mitigation. This is the essence of this paper.