Abstract
Drought has been a recurrent phenomenon in Mexico. For its assessment and monitoring, several studies have monitored meteorological droughts using standardized indices of precipitation deficits. Such conventional studies have mostly relied on rain gauge-based measurements, with the main limitation being the scarcity of rain gauge spatial coverage. This issue does not allow a robust spatial characterization of drought. A recent alternative for monitoring purposes can be found in satellite-based remote sensing of meteorological variables. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the standardized precipitation index (SPI) in Mexico during the period 1998 to 2013, using the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite product 3B42. Results suggest that Mexico experienced the driest conditions during the great drought between 2011 and 2012; however, temporal variability in the SPI was found across different climatic regions. Nevertheless, a comparison of the SPI derived by TRMM against the rain gauge-based SPI computed by the official Mexican Drought Monitor showed low to medium correlation of the time series though both SPIs managed to capture the most relevant droughts at the national scale. We conclude that the TRMM product can properly monitor meteorological droughts despite its relative short dataset length (~15 years). Finally, we recommend an assimilation of rain gauge and satellite-based precipitation data to provide more robust estimates of meteorological drought severity.
Highlights
Droughts are one of the most common natural hazards that can have impact on agricultural, ecological, social and economic consequences worldwide, and can often cause serious damage to crop production, limit water supply and even provoke human death
Meteorological drought can be monitored using drought indices such as the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) [4], which is based on precipitation and air temperature deficits, or the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) developed by McKee et al [5], which describes the cumulative probability of a rainfall occurrence over a given time period
Drought severity and its impacted areas during the first six months of 2012 were less intense compared to the same period during 2011
Summary
Droughts are one of the most common natural hazards that can have impact on agricultural, ecological, social and economic consequences worldwide, and can often cause serious damage to crop production, limit water supply and even provoke human death. Drought is commonly defined as a period of deficit in precipitation or below normal water availability [1,2] and is characterized for being highly heterogeneous in space and variable in time [3]. Several indexes have been developed to help identify the onset and end of a drought as well as its severity for water and agricultural management purposes. Meteorological drought can be monitored using drought indices such as the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) [4], which is based on precipitation and air temperature deficits, or the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) developed by McKee et al [5], which describes the cumulative probability of a rainfall occurrence over a given time period. The National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) [11], the Western
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