Author(s): Roberto A. Real-Rangel; Adrian Pedrozo-Acuna; J. Agustin Brena-Naranjo; Victor H. Alcocer-Yamanaka
Linked Author(s): Adrián Pedrozo Acuña
Keywords: Drought hazard monitoring; Drought magnitude; Standardized Drought Indices
Abstract: Droughts are among the weather-related disasters which affects most people around the world. Its large spatial extent and slowly, creeping onset, makes it difficult to define its start and end. Indeed, monitoring and early warning systems for drought hazards are recognized as critical activities of risk governance. Nevertheless, in many regions of the world, the scarcity of direct observations of climatological and hydrological variables, hinder an adequate follow-up and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper introduces a novel framework to generate drought hazard maps and time series, at national and regional levels, based on univariate and multivariate standardized drought indices. Notably, we utilize freely and globally available, gridded datasets of hydrological variables derived from remote sensing and data assimilation systems (e. g., rainfall, soil moisture, streamflow), which are verified against in situ measurements. A good performance of the framework is documented through the comparison of results against observed drought events in Mexico. This paves the road towards its use in other regions of the world, where data scarcity is an issue for drought monitoring activities.
Year: 2018