Building Capacity for a User-Centred Integrated Early Warning System for Drought in Papua New Guinea

Drought has significant impacts on the agricultural productivity and well-being of Pacific Island communities. In this study, a user-centred integrated early warning system (I-EWS) for drought was investigated for Papua New Guinea (PNG). The I-EWS combines satellite products (Standardised Precipitat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2021-08, Vol.13 (16), p.3307
Main Authors: Bhardwaj, Jessica, Kuleshov, Yuriy, Chua, Zhi-Weng, Watkins, Andrew B., Choy, Suelynn, Sun, Qian (Chayn)
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Climate change
disaster risk reduction
Drought
Early warning systems
El Nino
Emergency communications systems
Evolution
Food
Hydrology
La Nina
Pacific Island Countries
Papua New Guinea
Precipitation
Qualitative research
Rain
Rainfall
Remote sensing
satellite precipitation products
Weather forecasting
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Summary:Drought has significant impacts on the agricultural productivity and well-being of Pacific Island communities. In this study, a user-centred integrated early warning system (I-EWS) for drought was investigated for Papua New Guinea (PNG). The I-EWS combines satellite products (Standardised Precipitation Index and Vegetation Health Index) with seasonal probabilistic forecasting outputs (chance of exceeding median rainfall). Internationally accepted drought thresholds for each of these inputs are conditionally combined to trigger three drought early warning stages—”DROUGHT WATCH”, “DROUGHT ALERT” and “DROUGHT EMERGENCY”. The developed I-EWS for drought was used to examine the evolution of a strong El Niño-induced drought event in 2015 as well as a weaker La Niña-induced dry period in 2020. Examining the evolution of drought early warnings at a provincial level, it was found that tailored warning lead times of 3–5 months could have been possible for several impacted PNG provinces. These lead times would enable increasingly proactive drought responses with the potential for prioritised allocation of funds at a provincial level. The methodology utilised within this study uses inputs that are openly and freely available globally which indicates promising potential for adaptation of the developed user-centred I-EWS in other Pacific Island Countries that are vulnerable to drought.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs13163307