4.2.2. Drought

Drought is a climatic condition, which occurs when there is a RF below its normal pattern for a long period of time [54]. Drought has happened in the study area every year since 2000, compelling large-scale relief intervention by governmen<sup>t</sup> and international donors. A prolonged delay or a total absence of the rains during the two growing seasons (*belg* and *kiremt*) adversely a ffects crop and livestock productivity. About 84% (*n* = 336) of the households interviewed reported to have su ffered from drought-related e ffects in the last ten years. During the dry season, pastoral household members travel eight to ten hours every other day to water their livestock at the Hawassa Lake or Bilate River. Such long-distance trekking undoubtedly hinders household heads or other family members from devoting enough time to other livelihoods and, therefore, incurring further economic losses. To support the farmers' drought incident experience with the RF data, the researchers carried out RSA analysis. The result pointed out decreasing annual, summer, and spring RF amounts for the years under consideration. The SRA results pointed out that seven drought events of di fferent extent occurred in the study area of which one was extreme, two were severe, and four were moderate (Figure 3). The incidence of drought had increased in the study area because 88% of the drought happened in the last fifteen years of the three decades.
