Spatio-temporal drought identification through mathematical morphology

Abstract

Droughts are initiated by a lack of precipitation over a large area and a long period of time. In order to be able to estimate the possible impacts of droughts, it is important to identify and characterise these events. Describing a drought is, however, not such an easy task as it represents a spatio-temporal phenomenon, with no clear start and ending, trailing from one place to another. This study tries to objectively identify droughts in space and time by applying operators from mathematical morphology. On the basis of the identified droughts, OWA operators are employed to characterise the events in order to aid farmers, water managers, etc. in coping with these events.