DEVELOPMENT OF DROUGHT INDEX USING SATELLITE IMAGES

Abstract

Droughts cause severe human and economic damage and appropriate drought monitoring is important to reduce damage. Drought indices are one of the effective methods for drought monitoring. Drought indices which can evaluate drought spatially are required for detailed drought monitoring. The objective of this study was to develop a drought index, SDT (Standardized Difference Temperature), and show the usefulness of SDT. SDT focuses on the diurnal range of land surface temperature, using satellite images for spatial evaluation. SPI (Standardized Precipitation Index) was used to evaluate the usefulness of SDT. The results showed that SDT and SPI have good correlation in the beginning of the dry season and that SDT is valid for drought monitoring in these periods.