Spatiotemporal Drought Assessment over Sahelian Countries from 1985 to 2015
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Advanced Applications of Meteorological Satellite Observations in Ecological Remote Sensing
AUGUST 2020
Spatiotemporal Drought Assessment over Sahelian Countries from 1985 to 2015 Nusseiba NOURELDEEN1, Kebiao MAO1,2,3*, Alnail MOHMMED4, Zijin YUAN1, and Yanying YANG1 1 Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081 2 School of Physics and Electronic-Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021 3 State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100101 4 Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101 (Received October 17, 2019; in final form February 22, 2020)
ABSTRACT Due to infrequent rainfall, high temperatures, and degraded land, the Sahel region often suffers from droughts. The Sahel region is considered as one of the world’s driest and extreme environmental conditions. In order to assess spatiotemporal vulnerability of potential drought impacts, we used remote sensing and ground station data to evaluate drought conditions in the Sahel region from 1985 to 2015. The standard precipitation index (SPI), standard precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), vegetation condition index (VCI) anomaly, along with socioeconomic indicators were performed. In addition, Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) was computed between drought indices and three main crops (sorghum, millet, and maize) in the region to estimate the effects. The analysis showed that temperature increased by 0.78°C from 1985 to 2015, which had a significant impact on crop yield for sorghum, maize, and millet with a statistical significance value of P > 0.05. In the decade spanning 1994 to 2005 alone, the temperature increased by 0.57°C, which resulted in extreme drought in Algeria, Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, and Mauritania. For the effect of drought on crop production, high significance was noted on the SPI and SPEI-3 timescale: sorghum with SPI3 (r = 0.71) and SPEI-3 (r = 0.65), millet with SPI-3 (r = 0.61) and SPEI-3 (r = 0.72), and maize with SPI-3 (r = 0.81) and SPEI-3 (r = 0.65) during the study period. In the growing season, VCI anomaly had strong correlations with sorghum and millet (r = 0.67 and 0.75, respectively). A significant agreement was also noticed between the combined drought index (CDI) and vulnerability index (VI) in Burkina Faso (r = −0.676; P < 0.00), Mali (r = −0.768; P < 0.00), Mauritania (r = 0.843; P < 0.001), Niger (r = −0.625; P < 0.001), and Nigeria (r = −0.75; P < 0.005). The results show that the above indices are effective in assessing agricultural drought and its impact on crop production in the Sahel, and in identifying areas most affected by drought. Key words: vegetation condition index (VCI), drought, vulnerability index (VI), Sahel region Citation: NourEldeen, N., K. B. Mao, A. Mohmmed, et al., 2020: Spatiotemporal drought assessment over Sahelian countries from 1985 to 20
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