02 June 2025
Droughts pose an increasing threat to agriculture and water supply systems worldwide. A new study reveals how the field of drought research has evolved over the past 120 years. The systematic review, led by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), was published in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. The research team analyzed over 130,000 scientific publications using natural language processing and topic modeling. They discovered that drought forecasting and drought-tolerant crop research are growing rapidly while topics such as water resource management, ecology, and forest ecosystems have become less important.
A regional breakdown reveals the following: In Africa and Oceania, drought-related research is increasingly focusing on societal and political dimensions. In Europe and Asia, the emphasis is on monitoring and predicting droughts, particularly through digital methods such as remote sensing.
“Drought is no longer just a meteorological issue. It affects agriculture, public health, ecosystems, and energy supply,” says
Dr. Roland Baatz, the study’s lead author. “Our results show that drought research has become more interdisciplinary in recent years. This shift is essential to developing comprehensive, systemic solutions.”
Interdisciplinary topics are becoming increasingly relevant.
Certain research topics, such as climate change, remote sensing, and review papers, now serve as key connectors between scientific disciplines. These topics frame drought as a complex interaction between environmental, technological, and societal factors rather than a single-event hazard. This broad perspective is essential for creating sustainable drought preparedness and management strategies. Drought affects many areas of daily life, including drinking water supply, agricultural irrigation, and industrial cooling systems.
New Questions for Future Research
While the study highlights current priorities, it also reveals important research gaps. Despite their growing relevance, methods such as artificial intelligence, early warning systems, and studies of compound events, like simultaneous droughts and heat waves, were not identified as distinct research topics in the data.
Future research should pay greater attention to underexplored ecosystems that are essential to the planet’s life support system. For example, wetlands store water, support biodiversity, and help regulate local climates. Additionally, localized and culturally sensitive approaches to drought resilience are necessary, especially in high-risk regions. The societal and political impacts of water scarcity also deserve increased attention.
“Our overview can help align science, policy, and society,” says Dr. Baatz. “Only by identifying knowledge gaps can we develop effective responses to the increasing challenges posed by climate change.”
Project partners:
- Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany
- Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
- United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), Germany
- University of Potsdam
- European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Italy
Funding:
This research was supported by the Interreg Central Europe Programme with support from the European Union (grant no. CE0100059).
Further information:
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-1379-2025
Note on text
This is a summary of the original text created with the help of artificial intelligence: Baatz, R., Ghazaryan, G., Hagenlocher, M., Nendel, C., Toreti, A. & Eyshi Rezaei, E. (2025): Drought research priorities, trends, and geographic patterns. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 29, 1379–1393. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-1379-2025, published under the license CC BY 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The text has been carefully reviewed and edited in accordance with AI use guidelines at ZALF.
