{ "model": { "rank": 1848, "code": "thing-q43059", "model_id": "vr.tr.drought", "name": "drought", "purpose": "Let an agent explain drought and its types, relay monitoring, impacts and management from meteorological and water agencies, describe climate change links with attribution, and route emergency water and relief questions to authorities.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Cross-cutting context", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "XCT", "domain": "XCT.STA", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q43059/", "tier": 2, "score": 124, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "flash drought", "megadrought" ], "aliasCount": 2, "merged": 2, "knownIn": 124, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": "vr.tr.drought-time", "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q43059", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q43059", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-13T01:04:35Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 3, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q43059", "registryId": "vr.tr.drought", "name": "drought", "version": "0.2.0-wave.3", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "XCT.STA" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q43059/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.drought", "name": "drought", "purpose": "Let an agent explain drought and its types, relay monitoring, impacts and management from meteorological and water agencies, describe climate change links with attribution, and route emergency water and relief questions to authorities.", "definition": "A prolonged period of abnormally low precipitation relative to the norm for a region, leading to water shortage, crop failure, ecosystem stress and economic loss, classified as meteorological, agricultural, hydrological and socioeconomic drought, with flash droughts developing over weeks and megadroughts lasting decades; droughts are monitored with indices such as the Standardised Precipitation Index and are becoming more severe in many regions with climate change.", "what_it_is_for": "Not applicable; a hazard and climatic state.", "affordances": [ "explain types and causes", "relay monitoring and indices", "describe impacts and management", "relay climate change links" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Slow-onset hazard", "Relative to regional norm", "Cascading impacts", "Index-based monitoring" ], "appearance": "Dry cracked soil, low reservoirs, withered crops and reduced river flows.", "visual_identification": [ "Prolonged precipitation deficit", "Meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, flash and mega droughts", "Aridity is a permanent climate condition; heatwaves are temperature events, though they often coincide" ], "physical_properties": [ { "quantity": "people affected annually", "typical_range": "about 55 million", "unit": "people", "note": "WHO estimates" } ], "families_and_kinds": [ "meteorological drought", "agricultural drought", "hydrological drought", "socioeconomic drought", "flash drought", "megadrought", "historical droughts such as the Dust Bowl" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "extreme weather event", "why": "in registry terms" }, { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "meteorological disaster", "why": "in registry terms" }, { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "dry spell", "why": "in registry terms, when prolonged" }, { "relation": "is monitored by", "target": "drought index", "why": "such as SPI and PDSI" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [ "WMO drought monitoring guidance", "National drought plans and water restriction rules", "UN Convention to Combat Desertification", "Disaster relief frameworks" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Famine and water shortage", "Wildfire and ecosystem loss", "Economic and migration impacts", "Presenting attribution debates as settled" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "understand", "name": "Understand", "description": "What drought is.", "rationale": "Science.", "layers": [ { "id": "definition", "name": "Definition", "description": "Definition and types.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-finding", "name": "Definition", "description": "Definition.", "questions": [ { "text": "What is drought, and how do its types differ?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Is the condition drought, aridity or a heatwave?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "causes", "name": "Causes", "description": "Causes.", "findings": [ { "id": "causes-finding", "name": "Causes", "description": "Causes.", "questions": [ { "text": "What causes droughts, from circulation patterns to El Nino and climate change, as science describes?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits the specific driver?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "monitor", "name": "Monitor", "description": "Monitoring and forecasting.", "rationale": "Data.", "layers": [ { "id": "indices", "name": "Indices", "description": "Indices.", "findings": [ { "id": "indices-finding", "name": "Indices", "description": "Indices.", "questions": [ { "text": "How are droughts measured with indices such as SPI and PDSI?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which references are standard?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "current", "name": "Current", "description": "Current conditions.", "findings": [ { "id": "current-finding", "name": "Current", "description": "Current.", "questions": [ { "text": "Where are droughts occurring now, from official monitors?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "text": "Is the information current?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "manage", "name": "Manage", "description": "Impacts and management.", "rationale": "Regulation.", "layers": [ { "id": "impacts", "name": "Impacts", "description": "Impacts.", "findings": [ { "id": "impacts-finding", "name": "Impacts", "description": "Impacts.", "questions": [ { "text": "What impacts do droughts have on water, agriculture, health and economies, with sources?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is the user in an area with water emergencies, which needs local authorities?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "management", "name": "Management", "description": "Management.", "findings": [ { "id": "management-finding", "name": "Management", "description": "Management.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do drought plans, water restrictions and relief programmes work?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits water management?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "context", "name": "Context", "description": "Climate and history.", "rationale": "Attribution.", "layers": [ { "id": "climate", "name": "Climate", "description": "Climate change.", "findings": [ { "id": "climate-finding", "name": "Climate", "description": "Climate.", "questions": [ { "text": "How is climate change affecting drought, as the IPCC and attribution studies find?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which sources are cited?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "history", "name": "History", "description": "Historical droughts.", "findings": [ { "id": "history-finding", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "questions": [ { "text": "What were major historical droughts and megadroughts, as reconstructed by scientists and historians?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits the specific event?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should flash drought and megadrought be separate entries?", "How should monitoring services be linked?", "The registry entry has merged aliases naming drought types; should they be split off?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "abstract concept", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a drought, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent explain drought and its types, relay monitoring, impacts and management from meteorological and water agencies, describe climate change links with attribution, and route emergency water and relief questions to authorities.", "characteristics": { "substance": "abstract", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: flash drought, megadrought.", "2 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 124 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a drought, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "an abstraction with no physical instance", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. What is recognised is an instance of it, and which instances count is exactly what is argued about." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "flash drought", "megadrought" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 124 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 2 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one drought from another, and a drought from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a drought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a drought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a drought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a drought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a drought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a drought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a drought sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a drought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a drought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a drought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a drought from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a drought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a drought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a drought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a drought passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a drought between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a drought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a drought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a drought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a drought, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a drought is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a drought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a drought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a drought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definitions-in-contest", "name": "Definitions and who holds them", "description": "What drought is taken to mean, and by whom.", "rationale": "When a field disagrees about a concept, the disagreement is the content. A model that picks one definition silently destroys the information.", "layers": [ { "id": "competing-definitions", "name": "Competing definitions", "description": "The main readings and the traditions behind them.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-map", "name": "Definitions and their holders", "description": "Each definition with the school or body that holds it.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-map-q01", "text": "Which definitions of drought are in use, and which tradition or body holds each?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-map-q02", "text": "What turns on the difference between them in practice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "operationalisation", "name": "Operationalisation", "description": "How it is measured or applied when it has to be.", "findings": [ { "id": "operational-record", "name": "Measures and proxies", "description": "Instruments and indicators used to stand in for it.", "questions": [ { "id": "operational-record-q01", "text": "How is drought operationalised or measured in practice, and by what instrument?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "operational-record-q02", "text": "What does that operationalisation leave out, and when does that matter?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "instances-and-use", "name": "Instances, use and consequence", "description": "What counts as an instance of drought and what follows from calling something that.", "rationale": "Applying a concept is an act with consequences, so a model must say what the label licenses and what it does not.", "layers": [ { "id": "instances", "name": "What counts as an instance", "description": "Clear cases, borderline cases and non-cases.", "findings": [ { "id": "instance-tests", "name": "Tests for an instance", "description": "What would settle whether something falls under it.", "questions": [ { "id": "instance-tests-q01", "text": "What would settle whether something is an instance of drought?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "instance-tests-q02", "text": "Which borderline cases are argued about, and on what grounds?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequence", "name": "Consequence of application", "description": "Rights, duties or decisions that follow from the label.", "findings": [ { "id": "consequence-record", "name": "What the label licenses", "description": "What an agent may do once something is classified this way.", "questions": [ { "id": "consequence-record-q01", "text": "What follows practically once something is treated as drought?", "kind": "action" }, { "id": "consequence-record-q02", "text": "What must an agent not infer from the label alone?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a drought came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a drought and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a drought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a drought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a drought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a drought is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a drought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a drought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a drought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 5, "layers": 10, "findings": 12, "questions": 32 } } } }