_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: E-mail: nksacrc@gmail.com; International Journal of Environment and Climate Change 10(12): 498-510, 2020; Article no.IJECC.63762 ISSN: 2581-8627 (Past name: British Journal of Environment & Climate Change, Past ISSN: 2231–4784) Drought Characterization Over Periyar Vaigai Command Area in Tamil Nadu N. K. Sathyamoorthy 1* , A. P. Ramaraj 2 , K. Senthilraja 1 , R. Jagannathan 3 , S. P. Ramanathan 1 and V. Geethalakshmi 3 1 Agro Climate Research Centre, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India. 2 International Crops Research Institute for the Semiarid Tropics, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. 3 Directorate of Crop Management, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration with all authors. Authors NKS and APR designed the study, performed the statistical analysis, wrote the protocol, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Authors KS, RJ, SPR and VG managed the data analyses of the study. Authors APR and KS managed the literature searches. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Article Information DOI:10.9734/IJECC/2020/v10i1230332 Editor(s): (1) Dr. Arjun B. Chhetri, Dalhousie University, Canada. Reviewers: (1) Rita Sundari, Universitas Mercu Buana, Indonesia. (2) Zeynolabedin Tahmasebi Sarvestani, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran. Complete Peer review History: http://www.sdiarticle4.com/review-history/63762 Received 23 October 2020 Accepted 27 December 2020 Published 31 December 2020 ABSTRACT India encountered numerous drought years in the decades. It is a matter of concern with increased frequency as well as intensity, mainly due to factors related to changing climate in recent years. In India livelihoods of more than 75% of the population are directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture sectors. The strong and recurrent link between drought and farmer's livelihoods has highlighted the importance to understand the drought scenario of a place for designing coping strategies. To address the issue, this paper was formulated to characterize the drought scenario over Periyar Vaigai Command (PVC) area. To summarize the results, the locations Edayapatti and Periaaruvi had the highest number of annual drought occurrence (8) while the location Madurai airport had the lowest (2) based on the analysis of 30 years. On comparing the monsoons, there are no wide variations in drought characteristics between Southwest monsoon (SWM) and Northeast monsoon (NEM). Anomalies in rainfall during the monsoon seasons were studied through SPI, consecutive drought years were well presented through SPI, which gives relevant information for Original Research Article