Drought analysis for agricultural applications

Drought has wreaked havoc to human societies throughout history. Drought is usually caused by a multitude of factors starting from the deficit of precipitation when compared to climatic mean. Such a deficit when combined with high evaporation and transpiration result in soil moisture drought if there is no adequate irrigation. This is the so-called agricultural drought. Many indices have been proposed for different purposes using different datasets. In this MSc topic, we will evaluate some commonly used drought indices. A unified framework for drought monitoring and assessment was proposed by the use of standardized indices, such as the standardized precipitation index (SPI) for precipitation, the standardized precipitation evaporation index (SPEI) for precipitation and potential evaporation and standardized drought severity index – evapotranspiration index (SDSI-ETDI) for evapotranspiration, the standardized vegetation index (SVCI) for vegetation condition, and the standardized terrestrial water storage index (STWSI) for the terrestrial water storage in the catchment, in order to have a systematic description for meteorological, soil moisture and hydrological droughts (Su et al., 2016). As remote sensing and hydrometeorological data assimilation systems routinely provide data to derive the different indices, use of them can provide a uniform framework for drought assessment, monitoring and analysis as well as predictions.
We will assess the availability and suitability of different data (in-situ, reanalysis and satellite data) for agricultural applications in the Netherlands.