The spatiotemporal analysis of hydro-meteorological drought variations across NA demonstrates that anthropogenic factors seem to have substantially intensified hydrological drought conditions throughout the region.
Furthermore, between 2021 and 2024, the area experienced unprecedented meteorological droughts.
In Tunisia, the findings reveal that hydrological drought patterns diverge notably from meteorological trends: despite relatively stable precipitation between 2002 and 2010, groundwater storage declined sharply after 2010–2011.
This divergence underscores the potential influence of anthropogenic stressors, particularly unsustainable groundwater abstraction, in amplifying and prolonging hydrological drought beyond the effects of climatic variability alone.
Overall, these insights hold critical implications for improving drought-monitoring systems and advancing sustainable water resources management across NA.
Conventional unidimensional approaches that monitor only a single type of drought in water-resources research, particularly in the context of emerging droughts, often lead to ineffective planning and management strategies. This study addresses that gap by examining multiple large-scale drought types through a streamlined, integrative framework for monitoring severe drought events driven by both climate change and human activities across North Africa (NA), a region characterized by pronounced data scarcity and observation gaps. The spatiotemporal analysis of hydro-meteorological drought variations across NA demonstrates that anthropogenic factors seem to have substantially intensified hydrological drought conditions throughout the region. Furthermore, between 2021 and 2024, the area experienced unprecedented meteorological droughts. Evaluation of multiple independent datasets shows that traditional univariate monitoring frameworks significantly underestimate the magnitude and persistence of extreme events, such as the 2010 NA drought, because they fail to capture the multidimensional and interactive nature of drought dynamics. These results highlight the necessity of adopting a multivariate, spatiotemporally integrated perspective to accurately assess extreme droughts, even where observational data remain limited. In Tunisia, the findings reveal that hydrological drought patterns diverge notably from meteorological trends: despite relatively stable precipitation between 2002 and 2010, groundwater storage declined sharply after 2010–2011. This divergence underscores the potential influence of anthropogenic stressors, particularly unsustainable groundwater abstraction, in amplifying and prolonging hydrological drought beyond the effects of climatic variability alone. Nevertheless, this relationship warrants further investigation. Overall, these insights hold critical implications for improving drought-monitoring systems and advancing sustainable water resources management across NA.
