We found that households in metropolitan areas conserved significantly more water than those in non-metropolitan regions, and that these water-saving efforts in metropolitan areas persisted even after the drought had subsided. Using an explainable AI-based scenario analysis, we show that increasing drought-related news articles by 100 during the onset stage can raise household water-saving rates by about 15% (yielding USD 0.5 million in benefits) in metropolitan areas and 5% (yielding USD 0.3 million in benefits) in non-metropolitan areas. However, these effects decline significantly during the later drought alert stage.

Our findings highlight the behavioral and economic impact of timely media coverage in early drought stages, especially in metropolitan areas, and emphasize the need for coordinated government-media efforts to sustain water conservation. This study provides insights for targeted, time-sensitive communication strategies to improve drought resilience, leveraging explainable AI to quantify and interpret behavioral responses.