Drought In Brazil Research Articles

Spatially Compounding Drought Events in Brazil

AbstractSpatially compounding drought events affect multiple locations simultaneously, severely affecting food, water, energy, human health, and infrastructure sectors. Despite the cascading impacts and challenges compound droughts impose on society, we still lack an in‐depth understanding of spatially connected drought occurrences. Given the complexity and costs of droughts in Brazil, identifying regions prone to co‐experiencing droughts is critical for developing effective adaptation measures. Here, we develop a novel framework to assess the spatial co‐occurrence of hydrological drought events, which can be adapted for global applications to evaluate spatially compounding drought. This framework involves extracting drought data from individual catchments and calculating the co‐occurrence of droughts across all catchments. We apply this method to investigate the spatial connectedness of droughts in 511 Brazilian catchments over 39 years (1983–2022). Additionally, we classify catchments based on drought duration, intensity, deficit, number of events, and spatial connectedness to identify regions with similar drought behavior. Our findings reveal significant variability in drought characteristics and connectedness across Brazil, with the Central‐Northeast and Northwest Amazon regions being most affected by multiple and widespread droughts. We identify five distinct regions in Brazil that exhibit common drought behaviors, sharing attributes such as aridity, catchment area, and precipitation seasonality. These regions hold the potential to guide future adaptation plans for managing hydrological compound extremes at both the catchment and regional scales, including the development of risk pool networks. Our results underscore the importance of considering the interactions of spatially compounding hydrological droughts in risk assessments and adaptation strategies.

Characterization of hydrological droughts in Brazil using a novel multiscale index from GNSS

Drought severity is not only related to drought intensity but also depends on drought duration. To accurately characterize short- and long-term droughts and comprehend drought propagation mechanisms, it is essential to ascertain the multiscale features of drought extremes. Here, we estimate terrestrial water storage changes (TWSC) using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) vertical crustal displacement and then develop a novel Multiscale GNSS-based Drought Index (MGDI) to characterize hydrological droughts in Brazil from 2010 to 2021. MGDI is a probability-based drought index, and we employ a normal distribution to fit the TWSC result. The comparisons of temporal variations indicate that the MGDI is similar to other multiscale drought indices (i.e., standardized precipitation index (SPI), standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), and standardized terrestrial water storage index (STI)) at different time scales. Due to the longer response time to meteorological variables, hydrological drought indicators (i.e., MGDI and STI) generally lag behind meteorological drought indicators (i.e., SPI and SPEI) but with less noise on the short scale. The spatial distribution of MGDI-derived drought frequency reveals that hydrological droughts are most frequent in northeastern Brazil and near the Parana River Basin, with a frequency of up to 0.38 (about 55 months) on the 1-month scale. The spatiotemporal evolutions of the 2015–2016 drought event imaged by 3-month MGDI and 12-month SPI are generally consistent, and 3-month MGDI shows good temporal continuity of evolution. Investigation of drought propagation in various basins shows that 1-month MGDI correlates well with SPI on the specific time scales (e.g., 6-month, 11-month, 13-month, and 14-month), with all correlation coefficients above 0.55. In the Amazon Basin, we also find that MGDI on the 1.5–3 years scale is strongly correlated with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, suggesting hydrological droughts are likely to be modulated by ENSO. Our findings imply that MGDI can characterize hydrological deficits more comprehensively and offer some critical insights for multiscale drought research.

Fighting against, and coping with, drought in Brazil: two policy paradigms intertwined

In northeast Brazil, fight-against-drought and cope-with-drought have been identified as two different drought policy paradigms. This article aims to examine the persistence, coexistence, intertwining, and evolution of these drought policy paradigms by studying how they inform national policy responses in human-water systems. The questions guiding our research are what do the paradigms of fight-against-drought and cope-with-drought consist of and how did the competing paradigms develop over time? To address these, the research draws on a systematic analysis of policy documents, multiannual strategic plans from 2000 to 2020 (the most recently published), and interviews with key informants. This study found the paradigms evolved with the persistence of the fight-against-drought paradigm with incremental changes of the cope-with-drought. The coexistence of paradigms started in 2004 and was in 2016 that the persistence, coexistence and intertwining of both were established. We use two theories, Hall’s (1993) policy and Lindblom’s (1959, 1979) incrementalism for analyzing the influences drought policy paradigms in human-water systems. This study provides new insights to understand the role of ideas in policy processes empirically showing how drought policy paradigms gradually evolve influencing policy responses.

Assessing the chance of unprecedented dry conditions over North Brazil during El Niño events

The strongest El Niño events of the past four decades were associated with large rainfall deficits in North Brazil during the December to February mature phase, leading to substantial societal and ecological impacts and influencing the global carbon cycle. While the teleconnection between El Niño and northern South America is well studied, the small number of El Niño events—and especially high magnitude ‘major’ El Niños—in the recent observational record make a robust characterisation of the response over North Brazil in today’s climate difficult. Here we use a large, initialised ensemble of global climate simulations to provide a much greater sample of North Brazil rainfall responses to recent El Niño events than is available from observations, and use this to form an assessment of the chance of unprecedented dry conditions during El Niño. We find that record low rainfall totals are possible during El Niño events in the current climate, and that as the magnitude of El Niño increases, so too does the chance of unprecedented low rainfall, reaching close to 60% for major El Niños. However, during even the largest El Niños, when the observed North Brazil response has been similar and very dry, we find rainfall rates close to normal are still possible due to internal atmospheric variability. In addition to the predictable influence of the tropical Pacific, an unpredictable influence from the extratropics appears to play a role in modulating the North Brazil rainfall response via an equatorward wave-train that propagates down the western coast of North America and across to the Caribbean. Combining forecasts of El Niño with this improved information on the underlying chance of extremely low rainfall could feed into improved assessments of risk and preparedness for upcoming droughts in Brazil.

Recent Hydrological Droughts in Brazil and Their Impact on Hydropower Generation

Brazil has endured the worst droughts in recorded history over the last decade, resulting in severe socioeconomic and environmental impacts. The country is heavily reliant on water resources, with 77.7% of water consumed for agriculture (irrigation and livestock), 9.7% for the industry, and 11.4% for human supply. Hydropower plants generate about 64% of all electricity consumed. The aim of this study was to improve the current state of knowledge regarding hydrological drought patterns in Brazil, hydrometeorological factors, and their effects on the country’s hydroelectric power plants. The results show that since the drought occurred in 2014/2015 over the Southeast region of Brazil, several basins were sharply impacted and remain in a critical condition until now. Following that event, other regions have experienced droughts, with critical rainfall deficit and high temperatures, causing a pronounced impact on water availability in many of the studied basins. Most of the hydropower plants end the 2020–2021 rainy season by operating at a fraction of their total capacity, and thus the country’s hydropower generation was under critical regime.

Spatial and temporal patterns of propagation from meteorological to hydrological droughts in Brazil

Meteorological droughts propagate through the hydrological cycle causing hydrological droughts and societal impacts. However, the effects of climate and basin characteristics on hydrologic drought propagation vary regionally and remain largely unclear. In this paper, we characterize meteorological and hydrological droughts in 457 basins in Brazil. Using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI), we investigate hydrologic drought propagation based on differences in drought onset, the center of mass, and time to peak. Additionally, we estimate the recovery time of meteorological and hydrologic drought events. The results indicate that hydrological droughts are usually more long-lasting, severe, and with a slower recovery time compared to meteorological droughts. While the most severe meteorological droughts are observed in humid regions (e.g., Amazon and Southern Brazil), the most severe and long-lasting hydrological droughts are found in the driest region (i.e., Northeast Brazil) or mostly impacted by human activities (i.e., Southeast Brazil). Hydrological droughts in dry regions can take four times longer to recover than meteorological ones. For most regions, the propagation time was slightly different considering the different approaches. Our results highlight the importance of a multi-indicator approach to fully characterize the mechanisms controlling the development and propagation of droughts through the water cycle.

Hydrological impacts of ethanol-driven sugarcane expansion in Brazil

Ethanol production in Brazil is projected to double between 2012 and 2030 in order to meet increased global demand, resulting in the expansion of sugarcane cultivation. Sugarcane expansion drives both direct and indirect land-use changes, and subsequent changes in hydrology may exacerbate problems of (local) water scarcity. This study assesses the impacts of projected ethanol-driven sugarcane expansion on agricultural and hydrological drought in Brazil. Drought due to sugarcane expansion is modelled using a spatial terrestrial hydrological model (PCR-GLOBWB) with spatiotemporally variable land-use change and climate change scenarios as input. We compare an ethanol scenario with increased ethanol demand to a reference situation in which ethanol demand does not increase.The results show that, on average, 29% of the Centre West Cerrado region is projected to experience agricultural drought between 2012 and 2030, and the drought deficit in this region is projected to be 7% higher in the ethanol scenario compared to the reference. The differences between the ethanol and the reference scenario are small when averaged over macro-regions, but can be considerable at a local scale. Differences in agricultural and hydrological drought between the ethanol and reference scenario are most notable in the Centre West Cerrado and Southeast regions. Locally, considerable changes may also occur in other regions, including the Northeast Coast and Northern Amazon region.Because the South East and Centre West Cerrado regions are responsible for a large proportion of agricultural production, increased agricultural drought may result in significant economic losses, while increased hydrological drought could exacerbate existing problems of water supply to large metropolitan areas in these regions. The identification of areas at risk of increased droughts can be important information for policy makers to take precautionary measures to avoid negative hydrological impacts of increased ethanol demand.

An Evaluation of the Policy Response to Drought in the City of São Paulo, Brazil: An Election Cycle Interpretation of Effectiveness

Drought can have large, negative impacts on livelihoods and development outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. This highlights the need for drought response policies that can mitigate these impacts. We evaluate the policy response to the 2014–15 drought in Brazil that reduced the supply of water to the largest city in South America, São Paulo, by approximately one-third. Using microdata on household water consumption and a difference-in-difference design, we find that a penalty-based instrument induced household conservation behaviour but that a reward-based instrument did not. We examine why the reward-based instrument, which was both ineffective and expensive, was implemented at all. Our suggested explanation lies in political budget cycle theory. Exploratory tests imply that the reward-based instrument increased the share of votes to the incumbent governor. Penalty-based instruments are the technically effective drought response, but water sector decision makers in developing countries may need to contend with the distortionary effect of electoral cycles to implement them.

Extreme Drought Events over Brazil from 2011 to 2019

Drought-related disasters are among the natural disasters that are able to cause large economic and social losses. In recent years, droughts have affected different regions of Brazil, impacting water, food, and energy security. In this study, we used the Integrated Drought Index (IDI), which combines a meteorological-based drought index and remote sensing-based index, to assess the drought events from 2011 to 2019 over Brazil. During this period, drought events were observed throughout the country, being most severe and widespread between the years 2011 and 2017. In most of the country, the 2014/15 hydrological year stands out due to the higher occurrence of severe and moderate droughts. However, drought intensity and observed impacts were different for each region, which is shown by the different case studies, assessing different types of impacts caused by drought in Brazil. Thus, it is fundamental to evaluate the impacts of droughts in a continental country such as Brazil, where a variety of vegetation, soil, land use, and especially different climate regimes predominate.

The Nexus: Estimation of Water Consumption for Hydropower in Brazil

Recent major droughts in Brazil have given rise to discussions about water availability and security in relation to energy production. The relationship of the two resources, the water-energy nexus, is recognised as being of importance in literature and metrics for its estimation and understanding are sought after. One important aspect in understanding the water-energy nexus of hydroelectricity is estimating its water consumption and also its water footprint. In order to do this, this study uses a modified Penman-Monteith method to estimate evaporation from Brazil’s reservoirs for the period 2010-2016 and subsequently calculates the water footprint of hydroelectricity reservoirs. The results show the evaporation variation in space and time in the reservoirs and the differences of water consumed per unit of energy in Brazil. The discussion provides insight as to how the results can be valuable for future management and planning purposes.

Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century Brazil by Eve E. Buckley

Reviewed by: Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century Brazil by Eve E. Buckley Christian Brannstrom Eve E. Buckley Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century Brazil. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. vxiii + 279 pp. Table, maps, photos, notes, references, and index. $29.95 paper (ISBN 978-1-4693-3430-2). Why, in spite of the actions of federal agencies through dozens of projects over the past several decades, does human suffering from drought in Brazil’s northeastern region persist? Why did recurring drought in the semi-arid sertão kill thousands through starvation and disease, and force thousands more sertanejos into work camps, or worse? Interpretations have coalesced around the “drought industry” view (p. 4), first articulated by Brazilian journalist Antônio Callado, who argued in 1959 that northeastern elites “industrialized the drought” and enriched themselves through dam, reservoir, and transport projects that federal agencies implemented during the twentieth century in response to recurring drought (p. 199). The perverse outcomes of the “drought industry” were noted by Anthony Hall in his classic Drought and Irrigation in North-East Brazil (Cambridge, 1978) and received attention from many Brazilian scholars, such as Darcy Ribeiro, who noted that drought aid reduced resilience of sertão inhabitants and “added a water monopoly” to the assets of powerful landowners (p. 40). Technocrats and the Politics of Drought is about federal bureaucracies and the “drought technocrats” (p. 3) who built dams, reservoirs, roads, and irrigation projects that failed to make discernable reductions in the vulnerability of rural inhabitants to drought. Eve Buckley’s book does not attempt to overturn the “drought industry” paradigm for the sertão; rather, the book focuses on the engineers and agronomists who ran the bureaucracy and supervised the work sites. Through her reading of institutional archives in Rio de Janeiro, Recife, and Fortaleza, especially correspondence between field engineers and agronomists with their superiors, Buckley aims to offer a “more complex and nuanced” reading of the “drought industry” by showing that engineers and agronomists “exhibited [End Page 219] genuine sympathy” for the retirantes (drought refugees) and showed “profound distaste for Brazil’s chronic inequalities” (p. 4). She argues that drought technocrats “were not … uncaring instruments of an industrializing state” but rather they “were misled by their naïve beliefs that science and technology could resolve problems that were political” (p. 6), meaning the unequal access to food, land, and water that produced drought vulnerability. Buckley provides national political context for understanding actions of the leaders of the drought bureaucracies, which evolved from the Inspectoria de Obras Contra as Secas (IOCS; Inspectorate of Works to Combat Droughts, created in 1909) to the Inspectoria Federal de Obras Contra as Secas (IFOCS; Federal Inspectorate of Works to Combat Droughts), and then Departamento Nacional de Obras Contra as Secas (National Department of Works to Combat Droughts; DNOCS) and the Superintendência de Desenvolvimento do Nordeste (SUDENE; Superintendency for Northeast Development, created in 1959). She focuses on the leaders of these agencies, their educational backgrounds, and their priorities. Special attention is devoted to Celso Furtado, the leader of SUDENE and one of Brazil’s most prominent twentieth-century intellectuals. Furtado viewed drought vulnerability as a symptom of social inequality and marginalization and supported land redistribution around reservoirs as a solution to the drought problem. The 1964 military takeover in Brazil sent Furtado into exile and criminalized the idea of seeking drought relief through land redistribution. The analysis of Furtado’s land redistribution plan for the sertão, the last substantive chapter in the book, complements an earlier chapter on early-twentieth-century public health knowledge of the northeast. A public health survey of the northeast led by Belisário Penna and Arthur Neiva in 1912, three years after IOCS was established in 1909, supported the argument that sertanejos’ suffering resulted from disease, illiteracy, and marginalization, not racial degeneration, as Penna and Neiva’s contemporaries argued. Penna and Neiva’s interpretation was not put into practice in the drought bureaucracies, which were focused on dams, reservoirs, and roads. The core argument of the book is not why the dam-reservoir program succeeded, but that...

Stormwater volume reduction and water quality improvement by bioretention: Potentials and challenges for water security in a subtropical catchment

Climate change scenarios tend to intensify extreme rainfall events and drought in Brazil threatening urban water security. Low Impact Development (LID) practices are decentralized alternatives for flood mitigation and prevention. Recently, their potential has increasingly been studied in terms of stormwater harvesting. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about their potentialities in subtropical climate regions. Therefore, this study evaluated the behavior of a bioretention cell in a Brazilian city, during the dry period, which is critical in terms of pollutant accumulation and water availability. In addition to the runoff reduction and pollutant removal efficiency, this paper analyzed the potential for water reuse in terms of the stored volume and water quality guidelines. The results obtained show an average runoff retention efficiency of 70%. Considering only the water availability aspects, the potential stored runoff could be reused for non-potable purposes, reducing the water demand in the catchment by at least half during the dry season. On the other hand, the bioretention presented two different conditions for pollutant removal: Condition A – the concentration values are within the recommended limits for water reuse. The parameters found in this condition were NO3, NO2, Zn, Mn, Cu, Cr; Condition B – the pollutant concentrations are above the guideline limits for water reuse and cannot be directly used for different purposes. The parameters found in this condition were Fe, Pb, Ni, Cd and color. Considering water reuse, an additional treatment is required for parameters in this second condition. Further studies should evaluate the design aspects that can allow collection of LIDs effluent, additional treatment if necessary, and reuse in the catchment.

The mandacaru did not blossom: Positivist science at the service of drought control in 1877-1879

The article surveys the "scientific solutions" proposed to address droughts in Brazil's semi-arid sertão and frames them within a historical context characterized by scientificism, which then governed Brazilian and Western intellectual thought. It investigates how "men of science" devised theories and practices regarding the region's nature and sertão society. From this perspective, the article examines the process by which the semi-arid sertão was settled; droughts since the colonial period; the social, political, and economic impact of the great drought of 1877-1879; debates and projects related to the scourge of drought; and the construction of the discourse of drought as a regional and national problem.

Global and Brazilian Carbon Response to El Niño Modoki 2011–2010

The El Niño Modoki in 2010 led to historic droughts in Brazil. In order to understand its impact on carbon cycle variability, we derive the 2011–2010 annual carbon flux change (δF↑) globally and specifically to Brazil using the NASA Carbon Monitoring System Flux (CMS‐Flux) framework. Satellite observations of CO2, CO, and solar‐induced fluorescence (SIF) are ingested into a 4D‐variational assimilation system driven by carbon cycle models to infer spatially resolved carbon fluxes including net ecosystem production, biomass burning, and gross primary productivity (GPP). The global 2011–2010 net carbon flux change was estimated to be δF↑=−1.60 PgC, while the Brazilian carbon flux change was −0.24 ± 0.11 PgC. This estimate is broadly within the uncertainty of previous aircraft‐based estimates restricted to the Amazon basin. The 2011–2010 biomass burning change in Brazil was −0.24 ± 0.036 PgC, which implies a near‐zero 2011–2010 change of the net ecosystem production (NEP): The near‐zero NEP change is the result of quantitatively comparable increases GPP (0.31 ± 0.20 PgC) and respiration in 2011. Comparisons between Brazilian and global component carbon flux changes reveal complex interactions between the processes controlling annual land‐atmosphere CO2 exchanges. These results show the potential of multiple satellite observations to help quantify and spatially resolve the response of productivity and respiration fluxes to climate variability.

Drought in Brazil

This book is part of an ongoing series published by CRC Press under the title “Drought and Water Crises: Science, Technology, and Management Issues.” Drought in Brazil: Proactive Management and Policy provides an important story of recent efforts in Brazil to move the country away from crisis management to proactive management of droughts in order to demonstrate how development practitioners and government officials might achieve similar paradigm shifts in other countries. The recent advancements in drought management and policy in Brazil, while are in part very technical and scientific in nature, are first told in more of a story-telling format (Chapters 1 through 9) that will appeal to policy makers and development practitioners alike. The more technical details are elaborated upon in the second part of the book (Chapters 10 through 12).

Drought in Brazil: a hidden Public Health Disaster

Drought in Brazil: a hidden Public Health Disaster

Strong 2015–2016 El Niño and implication to global ecosystems from space data

ABSTRACTDuring 2015, sea surface temperature (SST) in the central tropical Pacific (TP) was warmer than normal, what indicated about the potential for the development of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). By December 2015, El Niño intensified when SST anomaly in the Niño-3.4 tropical Pacific area reached +2.9 °C, which indicated about the strongest event of the past 36 years. El Niño normally impacts weather, ecosystems, and socioeconomics (agriculture, fisheries, energy, human health, water resource etc.) on all continents. However, the current El Niño is much stronger than the recent strong 1997–1998 event. Therefore, this paper investigates how the strength of El Niño impacts world ecosystems and which areas are affected. The vegetation health (VH) method and 36-year of its data have been used as the criteria of the impact. Specifically, the paper investigates VH-ENSO teleconnection, focusing on estimation of vegetation response to El Niño intensity and transition of the impact from boreal winter to spring and summer. Two types of ecosystem response were identified. In boreal winter, ecosystems of northern South America, southern Africa, eastern Australia, and Southeast Asia experienced strong vegetation stress, which will negatively affect agriculture, energy, and water resources. In Argentina, southeastern USA and the Horn of Africa ecosystem response is opposite. One of the worst disasters associated with ENSO is drought. The advantages of this study are in derivation of vegetation response to moisture, thermal, and combined conditions including an early detection of drought-related stress. For the first time, ENSO impact was evaluated based on all events with |SSTa|> 0.5 ºC and >2.0 ºC. The current strong El Niño has already triggered drought in Brazil, southern Africa, southeastern Asia, and eastern Australia during December–February. Such conditions will be transitioned from boreal winter to spring but not to summer 2016, except for two regions: northern Brazil and southeastern Asia.

When every drop counts: Analysis of Droughts in Brazil for the 1901-2013 period

To provide information useful in policy formulation and management of drought impacts in Brazil, in this study, a sequence of drought events based on monthly rainfall of 1901-2013 on ~25 km x 25 km grid are derived at 4 timescales that include short-timescales (3-month and 6-month) and medium to long-timescales (12-month and 24-month). Subsequently, probability of drought occurrences, intensity, duration and areal-extent are calculated. The probabilities of occurrence of severe and extreme droughts at short-timescales are 1 in 12 and 1 in 66 years, respectively, all over the country. At medium to long-timescales, the probability of severe droughts is about 1 in 20 years in northern Brazil, and 1 in 10 years in the south. The probabilities of extreme droughts are 1 in 9 and 1 in 12 years over northern Brazil and in the south, respectively. In general, no evidence of significant (α =0.05) trend is detected in drought frequency, intensity, and duration over the last 11 decades (since 1901) at all the 4 timescales. The drought areal-extent show increasing trends of 3.4%/decade over Brazil for both 3-month and 6-month timescales. However, the trend increases for the 12-month and 24-month timescales are relatively smaller, i.e., 2.4%/decade and 0.5%/decade, respectively.

Management of health sector actions in drought situations.

Water is essential for the socio-economic development of a region and also for the survival of human beings. Water scarcity has direct and indirect impacts on the environment, the economy and human health. It can change the profile of morbidity and mortality of diseases, as well as having an impact on the supply of services that are essential public to the quality of life. This study aims to contextualize the occurrence of drought in Brazil, its effects on human health, as well as actions to be developed by the health sector to reduce the risk to those living in affected areas, with an emphasis on the monitoring of the quality of drinking water. This is a descriptive, qualitative study with a documental basis. The documents that were researched were related to initiatives by the Health Surveillance Secretariat of the Ministry of Health up until 2014. It is necessary to strengthen the performance capacity of the Unified Health System (SUS) in order to develop timely responses to reduce the risk to public health.

The Evaporative Stress Index as an indicator of agricultural drought in Brazil: An assessment based on crop yield impacts

Abstract To effectively meet growing food demands, the global agronomic community will require a better understanding of factors that are currently limiting crop yields and where production can be viably expanded with minimal environmental consequences. Remote sensing can inform these analyses, providing valuable spatiotemporal information about yield-limiting moisture conditions and crop response under current climate conditions. In this paper we study correlations for the period 2003–2013 between yield estimates for major crops grown in Brazil and the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) – an indicator of agricultural drought that describes anomalies in the actual/reference evapotranspiration (ET) ratio, retrieved using remotely sensed inputs of land surface temperature (LST) and leaf area index (LAI). The strength and timing of peak ESI-yield correlations are compared with results using remotely sensed anomalies in water supply (rainfall from the Tropical Rainfall Mapping Mission; TRMM) and biomass accumulation (LAI from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer; MODIS). Correlation patterns were generally similar between all indices, both spatially and temporally, with the strongest correlations found in the south and northeast where severe flash droughts have occurred over the past decade, and where yield variability was the highest. Peak correlations tended to occur during sensitive crop growth stages. At the state scale, the ESI provided higher yield correlations for most crops and regions in comparison with TRMM and LAI anomalies. Using finer scale yield estimates reported at the municipality level, ESI correlations with soybean yields peaked higher and earlier by 10 to 25 days in comparison to TRMM and LAI, respectively. In most states, TRMM peak correlations were marginally higher on average with municipality-level annual corn yield estimates, although these estimates do not distinguish between primary and late season harvests. A notable exception occurred in the northeastern state of Bahia, where the ESI better captured effects of rapid cycling of moisture conditions on corn yields during a series of flash drought events. The results demonstrate that for monitoring agricultural drought in Brazil, value is added by combining LAI with LST indicators within a physically based model of crop water use.