The changing characteristics of drought in China from 1982 to 2005

Drought is one of the most detrimental natural disasters. Studying the changing characteristics of drought is obviously of great importance to achieve the sustainable use of water resources at river basin scales. In this paper, the satellite-based Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) and Vegetation Health Index (VH) were firstly calculated by using NDVI and brightness of the Global Vegetation Index dataset derived from Advance Very High Resolution Radiometer for China in growing seasons over 1982–2005. Then, the long-term VCI and VH data were employed to study the variation of droughts in the ten basins covering the whole country. The linear trend of each pixel showed that most parts of China were getting wetter in growing seasons, and the drought areas defined by the number of drought pixels have decreased in most basins. The increasing trend of basin averaged values of VCI and VH also indicates the whole country was generally getting wetter. At last, to better understand the two remote sensing drought indices, the response of the growing-season VCI and VH was compared to that of the Palmer Drought Severity Index and 6-month Standard Precipitation Index. Significant spatial variability of the relationship between the VCI, VH, and the station-based meteorological drought indices was shown, and some more closely related areas were found. The study will be useful for water resources management for each basin in the future.