Abstract
Increased drought frequency in Australia is a pressing concern for scholars. In 2018, a severe drought in eastern Australia was recorded by the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). To investigate the main causes and impacts of this drought across southeastern Australia, this work presents an overview of the drought mechanism and depicts its evolutionary process. The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) from the Global Drought Monitor was used to identify the drought event and characterize its spatiotemporal distribution. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) were used to investigate the drought impacts on vegetation growth. In addition, the effects of drought response measures on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were analyzed. Our results showed that the exceptional drought occurred across southeastern Australia from April to December, and it was most severe in July, owing to an extreme lack of precipitation and increase in temperature. Moreover, we identified profound and long-lasting impacts of the drought on NDVI and SIF levels, especially for cropland. Furthermore, we also found that SIF was superior to NDVI in detecting drought impacts. This study advised on how to formulate timely and effective drought-response measures and supports sustainable socioeconomic development in Australia.
Highlights
Global warming is an irreversible trend [1,2,3], and as a result, extreme climate events frequently occur in most parts of the world and contribute to climate-driven and water-related hazards, such as droughts [4,5]
The Z-score for cropland was significantly lower than that of the other land-cover types, followed by grassland and forest,. These results showed that the exceptional drought had significant impacts on vegetation growth derived by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and cropland and grassland were the most affected
We found that the linear correlation between sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) was greater than that between NDVI and SPEI (Figure 12)
Summary
Global warming is an irreversible trend [1,2,3], and as a result, extreme climate events (such as EINiño and La Niña events) frequently occur in most parts of the world and contribute to climate-driven and water-related hazards, such as droughts [4,5]. Duration, and severity are expected to increase because of climate change, and the spatial distribution of drought at the global scale indicates that dry zones will become even drier [8,9,10]. This is a long-term threat to sustainable socioeconomic development, and its consequences include crop failure, starvation, and death [11]. Drought is considered to be the costliest natural hazard worldwide, with a recurring feature in most climatic zones [12,13] It is closely correlated with regional meteorological conditions. Remote Sens. 2020, 12, 54; doi:10.3390/rs12010054 www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing
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