A data-light composite climate resilience index reveals superior drought resilience of millets in rainfed agroecosystems

Rainfed agriculture is highly vulnerable to increasing rainfall variability and drought under climate change, necessitating robust and transferable approaches for assessing crop resilience. The IPCC climate risk and resilience framework conceptualizes resilience as the integrated interaction of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Accordingly, the Composite Crop Resilience Index (CCRI) was developed by integrating exposure resilience under the exposure component, rainfall-yield elasticity-based sensitivity resilience under the sensitivity component, and detrended Yield Stability Index (YSI) under the adaptive capacity component using long-term district-level rainfall and crop yield datasets (1998-2023). Rice exhibited the highest climatic sensitivity, with drought-year yield reductions frequently exceeding 40-60% and high rainfall-yield elasticity across districts, followed by maize. In contrast, millet crops consistently recorded lower drought-induced yield losses, lower rainfall sensitivity, higher yield stability, and consequently higher CCRI values across districts. Sensitivity analysis demonstrated stable resilience rankings under alternative weighting scenarios, confirming the robustness of the CCRI framework. Overall, millet-based systems exhibited substantially greater climatic resilience than rice-based systems under drought-prone rainfed conditions, highlighting their potential for climate adaptation and resilient crop diversification in vulnerable agroecosystems.