WRI · Drought Risk (Aqueduct)
Drought risk by country
How exposed are a country's people, livestock and crops to drought?
Of the 138 countries compared in 2019, Iceland had the lowest reading, 0.55303, and Moldova had the highest reading, 4.08091. In the middle country the figure was 2.62335.
Part ofRisk & Resilience
Drought risk · 2019
Context statistic
Lowest of 138Iceland
0.55303012019 · WRI’s rank
Who leads
The three countries at the lowest end of 138 compared, the three at the other end, and the first on each continent.
1Photo: Hansueli Krapf · CC BY-SA 3.0, greyscale
2Photo: Ximonic , Simo Räsänen · CC BY-SA 3.0, greyscale
3
Highest in 2019
Moldova4.08091
Ukraine4.02507
Bangladesh3.95455
Where a country sits says how it compares with the others measured, and nothing about why.
02Every measured country
Drought risk on a map
Each country is shaded by its value, in five groups holding the same number of countries. Hover a country for its value, or select it to open its profile. Below the map, each continent’s middle country.
Darker is a lower value — the better end.
- 3.16887–4.08091
- 2.85717–3.16565
- 2.41189–2.84744
- 1.98611–2.41053
- 0.55303–1.97450
- No reading in 2019
- Africa
2.31894
the middle country, of 41 measured · 55 members
Senegal0.75933
Morocco3.66585Lowest and highest reading in Africa.
- Americas
2.57438
the middle country, of 24 measured · 48 members
Suriname1.26157
Haiti3.64189Lowest and highest reading in Americas.
- Asia
2.87975
the middle country, of 33 measured · 52 members
South Korea1.78576Bangladesh3.95455Lowest and highest reading in Asia.
- Europe
2.97534
the middle country, of 38 measured · 49 members
Iceland0.55303Moldova4.08091Lowest and highest reading in Europe.
- Oceania
2 of 21 measured — too few for a middle: Australia, New Zealand.
Australia1.80087
New Zealand2.07616Lowest and highest reading in Oceania.
- Every region
19 sub-regions, lowest middle country first
- Middle Africa
1.39833
the middle country, of 7 measured · 9 members
Republic of the Congo1.10701
DR Congo1.86949Lowest and highest reading in Middle Africa.
- Eastern Asia
2.11579
the middle country, of 5 measured · 8 members
South Korea1.78576
North Korea3.16887Lowest and highest reading in Eastern Asia.
- South America
2.32352
the middle country, of 12 measured · 12 members
Suriname1.26157
Paraguay2.87332Lowest and highest reading in South America.
- Western Africa
2.36608
the middle country, of 12 measured · 16 members
Senegal0.75933
Togo3.51149Lowest and highest reading in Western Africa.
- Western Europe
2.41053
the middle country, of 7 measured · 9 members
Luxembourg1.65555
France3.01363Lowest and highest reading in Western Europe.
- Eastern Africa
2.41189
the middle country, of 15 measured · 19 members
Djibouti1.68740
Rwanda3.29588Lowest and highest reading in Eastern Africa.
- Southern Africa
2.43322
the middle country, of 5 measured · 5 members
Namibia1.51733
Lesotho2.84744Lowest and highest reading in Southern Africa.
- Northern Europe
2.61331
the middle country, of 10 measured · 13 members
Iceland0.55303
Lithuania3.39287Lowest and highest reading in Northern Europe.
- Central America
2.70718
the middle country, of 7 measured · 8 members
Costa Rica1.98611
Nicaragua3.08299Lowest and highest reading in Central America.
- Central Asia
2.84021
the middle country, of 5 measured · 5 members
Kazakhstan2.49795
Uzbekistan3.49621Lowest and highest reading in Central Asia.
- South-eastern Asia
2.93965
the middle country, of 8 measured · 11 members
Laos1.89368
Indonesia3.63800Lowest and highest reading in South-eastern Asia.
- Southern Europe
2.97358
the middle country, of 11 measured · 17 members
Slovenia2.14319
Serbia3.76231Lowest and highest reading in Southern Europe.
- Southern Asia
2.97958
the middle country, of 8 measured · 9 members
Bhutan1.85837Bangladesh3.95455Lowest and highest reading in Southern Asia.
- Western Asia
3.00962
the middle country, of 7 measured · 19 members
Armenia2.24301
Syria3.72298Lowest and highest reading in Western Asia.
- Eastern Europe
3.34491
the middle country, of 10 measured · 10 members
Russia2.33816Moldova4.08091Lowest and highest reading in Eastern Europe.
- Australia and New Zealand
2 of 2 measured — too few for a middle: Australia, New Zealand.
Australia1.80087New Zealand2.07616Lowest and highest reading in Australia and New Zealand.
- Caribbean
4 of 24 measured — too few for a middle: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica.
Jamaica2.93350Haiti3.64189Lowest and highest reading in Caribbean.
- Northern Africa
2 of 6 measured — too few for a middle: Morocco, Tunisia.
Tunisia3.35146Morocco3.66585Lowest and highest reading in Northern Africa.
- Northern America
1 of 4 measured — too few for a middle: United States.
United States1.97450Lowest and highest reading in Northern America.
03The whole field at once
The spread
138 countries, one dot each, on one scale — further right is a higher value. Half the countries are above 2.62335; a quarter are above 3.08398, and a quarter below 2.13352. The bar in each row marks that continent’s middle country.
04All 138 ever measured
Every country
In order, highest value first — rank 1 is the highest value, the way WRI’s own tables read. “=” marks a rank shared with another country. Higher is worse, and the rank is the World Resources Institute's own. Much of the arid world is missing — the source gives no score for many desert countries — so a country's absence is not a sign of low risk.
Showing 25 of 138 countries
Values for 2019.
05In this edition
Drought risk in records
The extremes of the statistic. A record reached by more than one country names none of them.
Highest reading
4.08091
Drought risk score (0–5)
Lowest reading
0.55303
Drought risk score (0–5)
06The measure
About drought risk
Drought risk combines how likely droughts are with how many people, livestock and crops they would hit and how vulnerable those are, scored from 0 to 5 by the World Resources Institute. It is a risk, not a record of droughts that happened.
What the number is: Drought risk score (0–5).
07Where it fits
Connections
Its part in the Country Index, the statistics whose values line up most closely with it across countries, and others on the same subject.
In the Country Index
Context, with no vote
This statistic is published in full under Risk & Resilience, but does not help decide any Country Index standing.
Moves with
Where drought risk is higher, these tend to be higher too.
- Population DensityUN DESA Population Division · 138 countries in commonρ 0.49
- EmigrantsUN DESA Population Division · 138 countries in commonρ 0.46
- Agricultural LandFAO · 138 countries in commonρ 0.44
Moves against
Where drought risk is higher, these tend to be lower.
- Renewable Internal Freshwater Resources per CapitaFAO · 137 countries in commonρ −0.51
- Export Concentration IndexUNCTAD · 138 countries in commonρ −0.41
- Commodity Export DependenceUNCTAD · 138 countries in commonρ −0.41
Rank correlation (ρ, from −1 to 1) across countries, on each statistic’s newest edition, out of 290 statistics sharing at least 80 countries with this one. Two statistics that move together do not cause each other.
08Keep reading
Explore further
The subject
The data, edition by edition
09Questions
Drought risk: questions and answers
Which country has the lowest drought risk?
Iceland, at 0.55303, among the 138 countries compared in 2019.
Which country has the highest drought risk?
Moldova, at 4.08091, among the 138 countries compared in 2019.
How many countries does the Drought Risk (Aqueduct) cover?
138 in 2019.
What is the world average drought risk?
This site does not calculate a world average, which would depend on how countries are weighted. In the middle country of the 138 compared in 2019, the figure was 2.62335.
Is this World Resources Institute (WRI)’s own ranking?
Yes. The rank shown is the one World Resources Institute (WRI) publishes.
How often is the Drought Risk (Aqueduct) published?
This site holds one edition, describing 2019.
Where does the data come from, and can I download it?
From World Resources Institute (WRI), under CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution). From the World Resources Institute's Aqueduct 4.0 country rankings. WRI cautions that its risk indicators are modelled and cannot be validated by direct measurement. Its projections to 2030, 2050 and 2080 are not used. Every edition is on this site’s Datasets pages as a full table, and downloads as a CSV file with every value unrounded.
10Method
Sources, method and citation
Source
Drought Risk (Aqueduct) — World Resources Institute (WRI)
From the World Resources Institute's Aqueduct 4.0 country rankings. WRI cautions that its risk indicators are modelled and cannot be validated by direct measurement. Its projections to 2030, 2050 and 2080 are not used.
Newest edition
Report year 2023Data year 2019
Cite the source as: Kuzma, S., M.F.P. Bierkens, S. Lakshman, T. Luo, L. Saccoccia, E. H. Sutanudjaja, and R. Van Beek. 2023. “Aqueduct 4.0: Updated decision-relevant global water risk indicators.” Technical Note. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. doi:10.46830/writn.23.00061.
Licence: CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution), checked 2026-09-29.
How this page reads the numbers
- The rank is World Resources Institute (WRI)’s own, as published.
- Which end is better follows the publisher’s own reading of the measure.
- A country is named at an end only when it holds that value alone. Where several share it, the page says how many and names none first.
- Values are stored exactly as published and trimmed only for display. “The middle country” is the median of the countries measured, not a world average.
The file itself, column by column — where it came from, what each column holds, and every edition as a CSV — is on its dataset page.
Photographs
The countries at the top of this statistic, from their profiles: Wikimedia Commons, shown in greyscale, each used under the licence named.
- Iceland — Hansueli Krapf, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Norway — Ximonic , Simo Räsänen, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Senegal — Arensond, CC0
Cite this page
Nations Inquiry (2026). Drought risk by country: Drought Risk (Aqueduct), data from World Resources Institute (WRI). https://nationsinquiry.com/statistics/drought-risk