Ecological droughts increased in India with changing Indian summer monsoon and human interventions

Substantial ecological ramifications of moisture stress in ecosystems is called ecological droughts, and are largely unexplored for India. Here, we investigate ecological droughts, their drivers and implications in Indian Summer Monsoon during 2000–2019 based on remote sensing and machine learning. Ecological droughts are increasing in the ecologically fragile pristine forests and croplands that decline vegetation health in India. Meteorological aridity (23.9%) and ocean warming (18.2%) primarily drive the ecological droughts, as suggested by the Random Forest model. Causal analysis reveals that ocean warming indirectly triggers ecological droughts in India. The human intervention in forests also leads to their degradation. The rising ecological droughts due to changing vegetation-climate-human nexus in a shifting monsoon system is a concern for sustainability, food security and climate change mitigation in India. It is thus imperative to consider the ecological repercussions of droughts in policy making and combat their threats through judiciously engineered nature-based solutions. Meteorological aridity and, indirectly, ocean warming contribute to increased ecological droughts in India during the Indian summer monsoon by about 24% and 18%, respectively, according to an analysis of satellite vegetation data over the period 2000–2019 using machine learning.