In:
Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, Copernicus GmbH, Vol. 21, No. 3 ( 2021-03-15), p. 995-1010
Abstract:
Abstract. Drought is a major natural hazard in the Bolivian
Altiplano that causes large agricultural losses. However, the drought effect
on agriculture varies largely on a local scale due to diverse factors such
as climatological and hydrological conditions, sensitivity of crop yield to
water stress, and crop phenological stage among others. To improve the
knowledge of drought impact on agriculture, this study aims to classify
drought severity using vegetation and land surface temperature data, analyse
the relationship between drought and climate anomalies, and examine the
spatio-temporal variability of drought using vegetation and climate data.
Empirical data for drought assessment purposes in this area are scarce and
spatially unevenly distributed. Due to these limitations we used vegetation,
land surface temperature (LST), precipitation derived from satellite
imagery, and gridded air temperature data products. Initially, we tested the
performance of satellite precipitation and gridded air temperature data on a
local level. Then, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and LST
were used to classify drought events associated with past El
Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phases. It was found that the most
severe drought events generally occur during a positive ENSO phase (El
Niño years). In addition, we found that a decrease in vegetation is
mainly driven by low precipitation and high temperature, and we identified
areas where agricultural losses will be most pronounced under such
conditions. The results show that droughts can be monitored using satellite
imagery data when ground data are scarce or of poor data quality. The
results can be especially beneficial for emergency response operations and
for enabling a proactive approach to disaster risk management against
droughts.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1684-9981
DOI:
10.5194/nhess-21-995-2021
DOI:
10.5194/nhess-21-995-2021-supplement
Language:
English
Publisher:
Copernicus GmbH
Publication Date:
2021
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2069216-X
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2064587-9
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