A review of drought indices

Zargar, Amin; Sadiq, Rehan; Naser, Gholamreza; Khan, Faisal

doi:10.1139/a11-013

Cited by 944 publications

(630 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…In drought monitoring there are many meteorological-statistical method and remote sensing based indices; more than a hundred of them is known (Faragó et al, 1993;Zargar, 2011). The one developed by Palmer (1965) in the US, which is calculated from precipitation, temperature and soil moisture content data, is the so-called Palmer Drought Sensitivity Index (PDSI) that has been used in Hungarian study areas too (Horváth, 2002).…”

Section: Vulnerability and Some Indicators Of Droughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drought Monitoring With Spectral Indices Calculated From Modis Satellite Images In Hungary

Gulácsi

Kovács

2015

Journal of Environmental Geography

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In this study a new remote sensing drought index called Difference Drought Index (DDI) was introduced. DDI was calculated from the Terra satellite's MODIS sensor surface reflectance data using visible red, near-infrared and short-wave-infrared spectral bands. To characterize the biophysical state of vegetation, vegetation and water indices were used from which drought indices can be derived. The following spectral indices were examined: Difference Vegetation Index (DVI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Difference Water Index (DWI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Difference Drought Index (DDI) and Normalized Difference Drought Index (NDDI). Regression analysis with the Pálfai Drought Index (PaDi) and average annual yield of different crops has proven that the Difference Drought Index is applicable in quantifying drought intensity. However, after comparison with reference data NDWI performed better than the other indices examined in this study. It was also confirmed that the water indices are more sensitive to changes in drought conditions than the vegetation ones. In the future we are planning to monitor drought during growing season using high temporal resolution MODIS data products.

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Section: Vulnerability and Some Indicators Of Droughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drought Monitoring With Spectral Indices Calculated From Modis Satellite Images In Hungary

Gulácsi

Kovács

2015

Journal of Environmental Geography

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“…Other drought indices used frequently include the Reclamation Drought Index [15,16], Drought Severity Index (DSI) [17], U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) [18], Evaporative Drought Index (EDI) [19], National Drought Atlas for the United States [9], and Crop Moisture Index (CMI) [20]. More drought indices and their performance can be found in reviews [1,17,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of Natural Vegetation to Different Stages of Extreme Drought during 2009–2010 in Southwestern China

et al. 2015

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An extreme drought event is usually a long-term process with different stages. Although it is well known that extreme droughts that have occurred frequently in recent years can substantially affect vegetation growth, few studies have revealed the characteristics of vegetation responses for different stages of an extreme drought event. Especially, studies should address when the vegetation growth was disturbed and how it recovered through an extreme drought event. In this study, we used the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) to evaluate the response of vegetation to different stages of a severe drought event during 2009-2010 throughout Southwestern China. The PDSI time series indicated that the drought can be divided into three stages, including an initial stage represented by moderate drought (S1), a middle stage represented by continual severe drought (S2), and a final recovery stage (S3). The results revealed that the drought during the initial stage inhibited the growth of grassland and woody savanna, however, forest growth did not decrease during the first stage of droughts, and there was even a trend towards higher NDVI values. OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2015, 7 14040The continual severe drought in the middle stage inhibited growth for all vegetation types, and the woody savanna was affected most severely. In the final stage, all vegetation types underwent recovery, including the grassland that had endured the most severe drought. This study provides observational evidence and reveals that the responses of forest to the extreme drought are different from grassland and woody savanna in the different drought stages.

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“…Drought duration is the time during which a drought index remains below a certain critical value, whereas drought severity is represented as the cumulative of a drought index below a critical value within the drought duration and drought intensity as the average of the drought index over the drought duration (Mishra and Singh, 2010). Comparison of the advantages, disadvantages and applicability of the various drought indices has been reported in the literature (Loucks and Beek, 2005;Zargar et al, 2011;Mishra and Singh, 2010;Guttman, 1998;Sims et al, 2002). In this study, we applied the commonly used Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) (McKee et al, 1993) and Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) (Shukla and Wood, 2008) to analyse meteorological droughts and hydrological droughts, respectively.…”

Section: Drought Classificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater as an emergency source for drought mitigation in the Crocodile River catchment, South Africa

Mussá

Zhou

Maskey

et al. 2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Global climate change has received much attention worldwide in the scientific as well as in the political community, indicating that changes in precipitation, extreme droughts and floods may increasingly threaten many regions. Drought is a natural phenomenon that causes social, economical and environmental damage to society. In this study, we assess the drought intensity and severity and the groundwater potential to be used as a supplementary source of water to mitigate drought impacts in the Crocodile River catchment, a water-stressed sub-catchment of the Incomati River catchment in South Africa. The research methodology consists of three parts. First, the spatial and temporal variation of the meteorological and hydrological drought severity and intensity over the catchment were evaluated. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to analyse the meteorological drought and the Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) was used for the hydrological drought. Second, the water deficit in the catchment during the drought period was computed using a simple water balance method. Finally, a groundwater model was constructed in order to assess the feasibility of using groundwater as an emergency source for drought impact mitigation. Results show that the low-rainfall areas are more vulnerable to severe meteorological droughts (lower and upper crocodile). Moreover, the most water stressed subcatchments with high level of water uses but limited storage, such as the Kaap located in the middle catchment and the Lower Crocodile sub-catchments, are more vulnerable to severe hydrological droughts. The analysis of the potential groundwater use during droughts showed that a deficit of 97 Mm 3 yr −1 could be supplied from groundwater without considerable adverse impacts on the river base flow and groundwater storage. Abstraction simulations for different scenarios of extremely severe droughts reveal that it is possible to use groundwater to cope with the droughts in the catchment. However, local groundwater exploitation in Nelspruit and White River sub-catchment will cause large drawdowns (> 10 m) and high base flow reduction (> 20 %). This case study shows that conjunctive water management of groundwater and surface water resources is necessary to mitigate the impacts of droughts.

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A review of drought indices

Cited by 944 publications

References 82 publications

Drought Monitoring With Spectral Indices Calculated From Modis Satellite Images In Hungary

Drought Monitoring With Spectral Indices Calculated From Modis Satellite Images In Hungary

Responses of Natural Vegetation to Different Stages of Extreme Drought during 2009–2010 in Southwestern China

Groundwater as an emergency source for drought mitigation in the Crocodile River catchment, South Africa

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