Monitoring Droughts in the Vu Gia-Thu Bon River Basin Using the Cloud-Based Google Earth Engine

Abstract

This study implemented an index-based approach to monitor drought in the Vu Gia - Thu Bon river basin using remote sensing data and Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud computing services. Landsat's time-series remote sensing data are effectively used to calculate various drought indices. In this investigation, we evaluated the performance of various remote sensing-based drought indices (RSDI) utilizing the cloud-based Google Earth Engine (GEE) computing platform. Results indicated that there was a significant correlation between RSDI and the in-situ Potential Evapotranspiration (PET) and the soil temperature. The empirical results of this study demonstrated the possible utility of remote sensing data in drought monitoring for data-scarce regions.