From Rainless Days to Systemic Drought Risk in Indonesia: Climate Drivers, Drought Propagation, Food–Water Vulnerability, and Adaptive Resilience

Abstract

Prolonged rainless periods are an increasingly important climate-risk signal in Indonesia, but their societal significance cannot be understood from rainfall duration alone. This qualitative literature review synthesizes recent evidence on how meteorological dryness evolves into agricultural, hydrological, and socioeconomic drought and examines the implications for food production, water security, rural livelihoods, and drought governance in Indonesia. The review integrates peer-reviewed literature published mainly during 2020–2026 with the September 2026 episode of exceptionally long consecutive rainless periods as a contemporary interpretive context. The synthesis identifies four principal findings. First, Indonesian drought is strongly shaped by interacting ocean–atmosphere processes, particularly El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole, monsoon variability, and local climatic conditions. Second, drought impacts emerge through nonlinear propagation involving soil-moisture depletion, vegetation stress, declining surface and groundwater availability, irrigation constraints, and socioeconomic exposure. Third, no single drought metric adequately captures this cascade; station observations, SPI/SPEI, satellite precipitation, vegetation indices, soil moisture, and data-driven approaches provide complementary information. Fourth, drought resilience depends on converting climate information into anticipatory decisions through irrigation management, farm adaptation, climate services, social protection, insurance, institutional coordination, and long-term water-system transformation. The article proposes an Integrated Drought-Cascade–Resilience Framework that connects climate forcing, hazard, propagation, exposure, impacts, risk intelligence, adaptation, and resilience. The framework implies that Indonesia should move from predominantly hazard-centred drought monitoring toward impact-oriented, multi-indicator and anticipatory drought governance.