Abstract
Abstract. Drought is a recurring climatic event characterized by slow onset, a gradual increase in its intensity, and persistence for a long period depending upon the availability of water. Droughts, broadly classified into meteorological, hydrological and agricultural drought, which are interconnected to each other. India, being an agriculture based economy depends primarily on agriculture production for its economic development and stability. The occurrence of agriculture drought affects the agricultural yield, which affects the regional economy to a larger extent. In present study, agricultural and meteorological drought in Maharashtra state was monitored using traditional as well as remote sensing methods. The meteorological drought assessment and characterization is done using two standard meteorological drought indices viz. standard precipitation index (SPI) and effective drought index (EDI). The severity and persistency of meteorological drought were studied using SPI for the period 1901 to 2015. However, accuracy of SPI in detection of sub-monthly drought is limited. Therefore, sub-monthly drought is effectively monitored using EDI. The monthly and sub-monthly drought mapped using SPI and EDI, respectively were then compared and assessed. It was concluded that EDI serves as a better indicator to monitor sub-monthly droughts. The agricultural drought monitoring was carried out using the remote sensing based indices such as vegetation condition index (VCI), temperature condition index (TCI), vegetation health index (VHI), shortwave angle slope index (SASI) and the index which maps the agricultural drought in a better way was identified. The area under drought as calculated by various agricultural drought indices compared with that of the EDI, it was found that the results of SASI matched with results of EDI. SASI denotes different values for the dry and wet soil and for the healthy and sparse vegetation. SASI monitors the agricultural drought better as compared to other indices used in this study.
Highlights
Drought is complex natural hazard, which has a slow onset and is defined by the acute water shortage
The prolonged low rainfall marks the onset of meteorological drought, which is followed by hydrological drought as a decrease in the surface water and ground water levels (Hisdal and Tallaksen, 2003), which has a direct effect on the agricultural crops resulting in agricultural drought (Mishra and Singh, 2010).* depending on the impact, which drought has on various sectors, it is classified into Meteorological, Hydrological, and Agricultural drought
The present study focuses on the comparison of meteorological based drought index like Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and Effective Drought Index (EDI) to monitor drought and identify the severity, persistence and onset of drought
Summary
Drought is complex natural hazard, which has a slow onset and is defined by the acute water shortage. It is described in many ways depending on its impact and varying characteristics. The effect of drought can be seen worldwide on the livelihood, environment, economy, and overall human well-being.Globally, around 11 million people died due to drought and 2 billion people were adversely affected by drought since 1900 (FAO, 2015). As per the reports from Food Security Information Network, around 108 million people from all around the globe were affected by food insecurity, caused by an El-Nino induced drought (FISN, 2016). India has a long history of drought events, and its impact on the livelihood of people.
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