Suitability of assimilated data-based standardized soil moisture index for agricultural drought monitoring

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
周洪奎 ZHOU Hongkui ◽  
武建军 WU Jianjun ◽  
李小涵 LI Xiaohan ◽  
刘雷震 LIU Leizhen ◽  
杨建华 YANG Jianhua ◽  
...  
Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Oertel ◽  
Francisco Meza ◽  
Jorge Gironás ◽  
Christopher A. Scott ◽  
Facundo Rojas ◽  
...  

Detecting droughts as early as possible is important in avoiding negative impacts on economy, society, and environment. To improve drought monitoring, we studied drought propagation (i.e., the temporal manifestation of a precipitation deficit on soil moisture and streamflow). We used the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI), and Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSMI) in three drought-prone regions: Sonora (Mexico), Maipo (Chile), and Mendoza-Tunuyán (Argentina) to study their temporal interdependence. For this evaluation we use precipitation, temperature, and streamflow data from gauges that are managed by governmental institutions, and satellite-based soil moisture from the ESA CCI SM v03.3 combined data set. Results confirm that effective drought monitoring should be carried out (1) at river-basin scale, (2) including several variables, and (3) considering hydro-meteorological processes from outside its boundaries.


2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 660-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venkataramana Sridhar ◽  
Kenneth G. Hubbard ◽  
Jinsheng You ◽  
Eric D. Hunt

Abstract This paper examines the role of soil moisture in quantifying drought through the development of a drought index using observed and modeled soil moisture. In Nebraska, rainfall is received primarily during the crop-growing season and the supply of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico determines if the impending crop year is either normal or anomalous and any deficit of rain leads to a lack of soil moisture storage. Using observed soil moisture from the Automated Weather Data Network (AWDN), the actual available water content for plants is calculated as the difference between observed or modeled soil moisture and wilting point, which is subsequently normalized with the site-specific, soil property–based, idealistic available water for plants that is calculated as the difference between field capacity and wilting point to derive the soil moisture index (SMI). This index is categorized into five classes from no drought to extreme drought to quantitatively assess drought in both space and time. Additionally, with the aid of an in-house hydrology model, soil moisture was simulated in order to compute model-based SMI and to compare the drought duration and severity for various sites. The results suggest that the soil moisture influence, a positive feedback process reported in many earlier studies, is unquestionably a quantitative indicator of drought. Also, the severity and duration of drought across Nebraska has a clear gradient from west to east, with the Panhandle region experiencing severe to extreme drought in the deeper soil layers for longer periods (>200 days), than the central and southwestern regions (125–150 days) or the eastern regions about 100 days or less. The anomalous rainfall years can eliminate the distinction among these regions with regard to their drought extent, severity, and persistence, thus making drought a more ubiquitous phenomenon, but the recovery from drought can be subject to similar gradations. The spatial SMI maps presented in this paper can be used with the Drought Monitor maps to assess the local drought conditions more effectively.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2813
Author(s):  
Marangely Gonzalez Cruz ◽  
E. Annette Hernandez ◽  
Venkatesh Uddameri

A bivariate kernel density estimation (KDE) method was utilized to develop a stochastic framework to assess how agricultural droughts are related to unfavorable meteorological conditions. KDE allows direct estimation of the bivariate cumulative density function which can be used to extract the marginal distributions with minimal subjectivity. The approach provided excellent fits to bivariate relationships between the standardized soil moisture index (SSMI) computed at three- and six-month accumulations and standardized measures of precipitation (P), potential evapotranspiration (PET), and atmospheric water deficit (AWD = P − PET) at 187 stations in the High Plains region of the US overlying the Ogallala Aquifer. The likelihood of an agricultural drought given a precipitation deficit could be as high as 40–65% within the study area during summer months and between 20–55% during winter months. The relationship between agricultural drought risks and precipitation deficits is strongest in the agriculturally intensive central portions of the study area. The conditional risks of agricultural droughts given unfavorable PET conditions are higher in the eastern humid portions than the western arid portions. Unfavorable PET had a higher impact on the six-month standardized soil moisture index (SSMI6) but was also seen to influence three-month SSMI (SSMI3). Dry states as defined by AWD produced higher risks than either P or PET, suggesting that both of these variables influence agricultural droughts. Agricultural drought risks under favorable conditions of AWD were much lower than when AWD was unfavorable. The agricultural drought risks were higher during the winter when AWD was favorable and point to the role of soil characteristics on agricultural droughts. The information provides a drought atlas for an agriculturally important region in the US and, as such, is of practical use to decision makers. The methodology developed here is also generic and can be extended to other regions with considerable ease as the global datasets required are readily available.


Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Zeri ◽  
Regina S. Alvalá ◽  
Rogério Carneiro ◽  
Gisleine Cunha-Zeri ◽  
José Costa ◽  
...  

Soil moisture over the Brazilian semiarid region is presented in different visualizations that highlight spatial, temporal and short-term agricultural risk. The analysis used the Soil Moisture Index (SMI), which is based on a normalization of soil moisture by field capacity and wilting point. The index was used to characterize the actual soil moisture conditions into categories from severe drought to very wet. In addition, the temporal evolution of SMI was implemented to visualize recent trends in short-term drought and response to rainfall events at daily time steps, as new data are available. Finally, a visualization of drought risk was developed by considering a critical value of SMI (assumed as 0.4), below which water stress is expected to be triggered in plants. A novel index based on continuous exposure to critical SMI was developed to help bring awareness of real time risk of water stress over the region: the Index of Stress in Agriculture (ISA). The index was tested during a drought over the region and successfully identified locations under water stress for periods of three days or more. The monitoring tools presented here help to describe the real time conditions of drought over the region using daily observations. The information from those tools support decisions on agricultural management such as planting dates, triggering of irrigation, or harvesting.


2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huailiang Chen ◽  
Hongwei Zhang ◽  
Shuang-he Shen ◽  
Weidong Yu ◽  
Chunhui Zou

Proceedings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnab Saha ◽  
Manti Patil ◽  
Vikas Chandra Goyal ◽  
Devendra Singh Rathore

Soil moisture takes an important part involving climate, vegetation and drought. This paper explains how to calculate the soil moisture index and the role of soil moisture. The objective of this study is to assess the moisture content in soil and soil moisture mapping by using remote sensing data in the selected study area. We applied the remote sensing technique which relies on the use of the soil moisture index (SMI) which uses the data obtained from satellite sensors in its algorithm. The relationship between land surface temperature (LST) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) are based on experimental parameterization for the soil moisture index. Multispectral satellite data (visible, red and near-infrared (NIR) and thermal infrared sensor (TIRS) bands) were utilized for assessment of LST and to make vegetation indices map. Geographic Information System (GIS) and image processing software were utilized to determine the LST and NDVI. NDVI and LST are considered as essential data to obtain SMI calculation. The statistical regression analysis of NDVI and LST were shown in standardized regression coefficient. NDVI values are within range −1 to 1 where negative values present loss of vegetation or contaminated vegetation, whereas positive values explain healthy and dense vegetation. LST values are the surface temperature in °C. SMI is categorized into classes from no drought to extreme drought to quantitatively assess drought. The final result is obtainable with the values range from 0 to 1, where values near 1 are the regions with a low amount of vegetation and surface temperature and present a higher level of soil moisture. The values near 0 are the areas with a high amount of vegetation and surface temperature and present the low level of soil moisture. The results indicate that this method can be efficiently applied to estimate soil moisture from multi-temporal Landsat images, which is valuable for monitoring agricultural drought and flood disaster assessment.


2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 3451-3460 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. T. Crow ◽  
S. V. Kumar ◽  
J. D. Bolten

Abstract. The lagged rank cross-correlation between model-derived root-zone soil moisture estimates and remotely sensed vegetation indices (VI) is examined between January 2000 and December 2010 to quantify the skill of various soil moisture models for agricultural drought monitoring. Examined modeling strategies range from a simple antecedent precipitation index to the application of modern land surface models (LSMs) based on complex water and energy balance formulations. A quasi-global evaluation of lagged VI/soil moisture cross-correlation suggests, when globally averaged across the entire annual cycle, soil moisture estimates obtained from complex LSMs provide little added skill (< 5% in relative terms) in anticipating variations in vegetation condition relative to a simplified water accounting procedure based solely on observed precipitation. However, larger amounts of added skill (5–15% in relative terms) can be identified when focusing exclusively on the extra-tropical growing season and/or utilizing soil moisture values acquired by averaging across a multi-model ensemble.


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