ABSTRACT
Having increased during last decades, droughts and water scarcity are due to be one of the most important management issues in Europe. New rainfall patterns driven by climate change will require improved drought forecasting and monitoring, as well as strategies to reduce its potential impact. The development of droughts indicators help in identifying drought hazards, while the use of risk-based decision-making processes, drought monitoring systems, threshold values to identify the system state (such as normal operation, alert or emergency states) and programs of measures has proven to be a powerful mechanism to confront the negative impacts caused by droughts.
