Abstract
ABSTRACTDrought is the most pressing problem facing farmers in Central America, and information on drought is thus crucial for agronomic planners to minimize impacts on crop production and food supply. This study assessed the cultivated areas affected by droughts using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data during 2001–2014, processed using a simple vegetation health index (VHI). The results, verified with the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) precipitation data and TVDI (temperature vegetation dryness index), indicated that the correlation coefficients (r) between the VHI and AMSR2 precipitation data for 2013 and 2014 were 0.81 and 0.78, respectively, and the values between VHI and TVDI were –0.68 and –0.61, respectively. The largest area of severe drought was especially observed for the 2014 primera season (April–August) over the last 14 years. The drought mapping results were aggregated with the cultivated areas for crop monitoring purposes.
Highlights
Drought is recognized as one of the most frequent and costly natural disasters, imposing devastating effects on human societies and ecosystems (Bruce 1994; Mishra & Singh 2010; Wilhite 2000)
The vegetation health index (VHI) results were compared with the accumulated Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) precipitation data and the TVDI results to investigate the relationships between these datasets for 2013 and 2014
The comparison results between the VHI data, which were resampled to the same resolution with the AMSR2 precipitation data (i.e. 10 km resolution), indicated that there were discrepancies between both datasets due to the resampling process, the VHI closely agreed with the real precipitation data measured from the C-band passive microwave radiometer, the AMSR2 on-board Aqua platform (Figure 4)
Summary
Drought is recognized as one of the most frequent and costly natural disasters, imposing devastating effects on human societies and ecosystems (Bruce 1994; Mishra & Singh 2010; Wilhite 2000). Climate change coupled with intensifying human activities, including urbanization, deforestation, water reservoir construction, has led to increased frequency and extreme drought events, causing significant impacts on water supplies, agriculture, issues of food, water, and energy security, and environmental ecosystems in all climatic regimes (Blenkinsop & Fowler 2007; Brunetti et al 2002; Mishra & Singh 2009; Trenberth et al 2014). The drought severity depends on its duration, intensity, spatial extent, and local socioeconomic conditions (Wilhite 2000). Impacts of climate change in the form of higher temperatures and lower precipitation have triggered intensive droughts and short
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