Mapping the spatial and temporal variation of agricultural and meteorological drought using geospatial techniques, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing play an important role for near real time monitoring of drought condition over large areas. The objective of this study was to assess spatial and temporal variation of agricultural and metrological drought using temporal image of eMODIS NDVI based vegetation condition index (VCI) and standard precipitation index (SPI). To validate the strength of drought indices correlation analysis was made between VCI and crop yield anomaly as well as SPI and crop yield anomaly. The results revealed that the year 2009 and 2015 were drought years while the 2001 and 2007 were wet years. There was also a good correlation between NDVI and rainfall (r=0.71), VCI and crop yield anomaly (0.72), SPI and crop yield anomaly (0.74). Frequency of metrological and agricultural drought was compiled by using historical drought intensity map. Result The result shows that there was complex and local scale variation in frequency of drought events in the study period. There was also no year without drought in many parts of the study area. Combined drought risk map also showed that 8%, 56%, 35% and 8% of study area were vulnerable to very severe, severe and moderate drought condition respectively. Conclusion In conclusion, the study area is highly vulnerable to agricultural and meteorological drought. Thus besides mapping drought vulnerable areas, integrating socioeconomic data for better understand other vulnerable factors were recommended.