Developing a satellite-based combined drought indicator to monitor agricultural drought: a case study for Ethiopia

Developing a robust drought monitoring tool is vital to mitigate the adverse impacts of drought. A drought monitoring system that integrates multiple agrometeorological variables into a single drought indicator is lacking in areas such as Ethiopia, which is extremely susceptible to this natural hazard. The overarching goal of this study is to develop a combined drought indicator (CDI-E) to monitor the spatial and temporal extents of historic agricultural drought events in Ethiopia. The CDI-E was developed by combining four satellite-based agrometeorological input parameters – the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Land Surface Temperature (LST) anomaly, Standardized Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (stdNDVI) and Soil Moisture (SM) anomaly – for the period from 2001 to 2015. The method used to combine these indices is based on a quantitative approach that assigns a weight to each input parameter using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The CDI-E results were evaluated using satellite-based gridded rainfall (3-month SPI) and crop yield data for 36 intra-country crop growing zones for a 15-year period (2001 to 2015). The evaluation was carried out for the main rainfall season, Kiremt (June-September), and the short rainfall season, Belg (February-May). The results showed that moderate to severe droughts were detected by the CDI-E across the food insecure regions reported by FEWS NET during Kiremt and Belg rainfall seasons. Relatively higher correlation coefficient values (r > 0.65) were obtained when CDI-E was compared with the 3-month SPI across the majority of Ethiopia. The spatial correlation analyses of CDI-E and cereal crop yields showed relatively good correlations (r > 0.5) in some of the crop growing zones in the northern, eastern and southwestern parts of the country. The CDI-E generally mapped the spatial and temporal patterns of historic drought and non-drought years and hence the CDI-E could potentially be used to develop an agricultural drought monitoring and early warning system in Ethiopia. Moreover, decision makers and donors may potentially use CDI-E to more accurately monitor crop yields across the food-insecure regions in Ethiopia.