Integrated Approaches for Drought Monitoring and Early Warning in Data Scarce Regions

Droughts can cause tremendous impacts on populations, economies and ecosystems, especially in developing regions where vulnerability to natural hazard impacts is high. These regions are also where capacity to monitor and provide early warning of droughts is limited. This is partly due to the lack of real-time monitoring of hydrological and agricultural conditions. However, there has been much work over the past several years on developing and improving monitoring of hydrological hazards from satellite remote sensing and hydro-agricultural models, which bypass the lack of on the ground data. In the case of models, they can also provide information on attribution, can be used to provide forecasts, and can aid in decision making. This lecture reviews the progress that has been made in using modeling and remotely sensed tools for monitoring and forecasting droughts in data scarce regions, including more recent innovations in crowd-sourcing and environmental sensors. I further discuss how our understanding of how drought propagates and feedbacks through the atmosphere-vegetation-land continuum has helped to improve integrated monitoring and forecasting of droughts and their impacts. I finish by discussing how this information is being translated into integrated approaches that incorporate multiple sensors, stakeholder needs and capacity building, and ultimately how research on hydrological monitoring and forecasting can be translated into societal benefits.