Spatial and temporal assessment of drought in the Northern highlands of Ethiopia

With the development of global changes, researchers from all over the world increasingly pay attention to drought detection, and severe droughts that may have resulted from climate change. In this paper, spatial and temporal variability of drought is evaluated based on precipitation data and remotel...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of applied earth observation and geoinformation 2011-06, Vol.13 (3), p.309-321
Main Authors: Gebrehiwot, Tagel, van der Veen, Anne, Maathuis, Ben
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied geophysics
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
Internal geophysics
NDVI
Precipitation
Remote sensing
Time lag
VCI
Vegetation
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Summary:With the development of global changes, researchers from all over the world increasingly pay attention to drought detection, and severe droughts that may have resulted from climate change. In this paper, spatial and temporal variability of drought is evaluated based on precipitation data and remotely sensed images. The standard precipitation index (SPI) and vegetation condition index (VCI) are used to evaluate the spatial and temporal characteristics of meteorological and vegetative drought in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. Based on the drought critical values of SPI and VCI defining drought, the spatial and temporal extent of droughts in the study area is established. We processed 396 decadal images in order to produce the multi-temporal VCI drought maps. The results of the SPI and VCI analysis reveal that the eastern and southern zones of the study region suffered a recurrent cycle of drought over the last decade. Results further show that there is a time lag between the period of the peak VCI and precipitation values obtained from the meteorological stations across the study area. A significant agreement was observed between VCI values with the current plus last two-months of precipitation. The study demonstrates the utility of the vegetation condition index in semi-arid and arid regions.
ISSN:1569-8432
1872-826X
DOI:10.1016/j.jag.2010.12.002