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 Geophysical Monograph 265

Global Drought and Flood

Observation, Modeling, and Prediction
Huan Wu
Dennis P. Lettenmaier
Qiuhong Tang
Philip J. Ward

Editors

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This edition first published 2021
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CONTENTS

List of Contributors...............................................................................................................................................vii

Preface.................................................................................................................................................................xiii

Part I: Remote Sensing for Global Drought and Flood Observations

1 Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities in Remote Sensing of Drought
Arash Modarresi Rad, Amir AghaKouchak, Mahdi Navari, and Mojtaba Sadegh...............................................3

2 Remote Sensing of Evapotranspiration for Global Drought Monitoring

Xiwu Zhan, Li Fang, Jifu Yin, Mitchell Schull, Jicheng Liu, Christopher Hain,
Martha Anderson, William Kustas, and Satya Kalluri.......................................................................................29

3 Drought Monitoring Using Reservoir Data Collected via Satellite Remote Sensing
Huilin Gao, Gang Zhao, Yao Li, and Shuai Zhang...........................................................................................47

4 Automatic Near‐Real‐Time Flood Mapping from Geostationary Low Earth Orbiting

Satellite Observations
Sanmei Li, Donglian Sun, Mitchell D. Goldberg, and Dan Lindsey..................................................................61

5 Global Flood Observation with Multiple Satellites: Applications

in Rio Salado (Argentina) and the Eastern Nile Basin
Beth Tellman, Jonathan A. Sullivan, and Colin S. Doyle...................................................................................99

6 Integrating Earth Observation Data of Floods with Large‐Scale Hydrodynamic Models

Guy J.‐P. Schumann and Jeffrey C. Neal........................................................................................................123

Part II: Modeling and Prediction of Global Drought and Flood

7 Global Integrated Drought Monitoring with a Multivariate Framework
Zengchao Hao.............................................................................................................................................139

8 A Probabilistic Framework for Agricultural Drought Forecasting Using the Ensemble

Data Assimilation and Bayesian Multivariate Modeling
Mahkameh Zarekarizi, Hongxiang Yan, Ali Ahmadalipour, and Hamid Moradkhani......................................147

9 Integrating Soil Moisture Active/Passive Observations with Rainfall Data Using

an Analytic Model for Drought Monitoring at the Continental Scale
Feng Ma, Lifeng Luo, and Aizhong Ye...........................................................................................................165

10 Global Flood Models

Mark A. Trigg, Mark Bernhofen, David Marechal, Lorenzo Alfieri, Francesco Dottori,
Jannis Hoch, Matt Horritt, Chris Sampson, Andy Smith, Dai Yamazaki, and Hongyi Li..................................181

11 Calibration of Global Flood Models: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

Feyera A. Hirpa, Valerio Lorini, Simon J. Dadson, and Peter Salamon............................................................201

v
vi Contents

12 Digital Elevation Model and Drainage Network Data Sets for Global Flood and Drought Modeling
Huan Wu, Jing Tao, Dai Yamazaki, Weitian Chen, Zequn Huang, Chaoqun Li,
and John Kimball.........................................................................................................................................213

13 Fundamental Data Set for Global Drought and Flood Modeling: Land Use and Land Cover
Min Feng......................................................................................................................................................237

Part III: Global Drought and Flood Risk Assessment, Management, and Socioeconomic Response
14 Global River Flood Risk Under Climate Change
Francesco Dottori, Lorenzo Alfieri, Lauro Rossi, Roberto Rudari, Philip J. Ward, and Fang Zhao.....................253

15 Direct Tangible Damage Classification and Exposure Analysis Using Satellite Images and Media Data
Siquan Yang and Haixia He..........................................................................................................................271

16 Flood Risk and Monitoring Data for Preparedness and Response: From Availability to Use
Andrew Kruczkiewicz, Mélody Braun, Shanna McClain, Helen Greatrex, Lace Padilla,
Laura Hoffman‐Hernandez, Kara Siahaan, Miriam Nielsen, Brian Llamanzares, and Zachary Flamig.............289

17 Global Flood Partnership

Lorenzo Alfieri, Sagy Cohen, John Galantowicz, Guy J.‐P. Schumann, Mark A. Trigg, Ervin Zsoter,
Christel Prudhomme, Andrew Kruczkiewicz, Erin Coughlan de Perez, Zachary Flamig,
Roberto Rudari, Huan Wu, Robert F. Adler, Robert G. Brakenridge, Albert Kettner, Albrecht Weerts,
Patrick Matgen, Saiful A.K.M. Islam, Tom de Groeve, Francesco Dottori, and Peter Salamon........................307

18 Drought and Flood Monitoring and Forecasting: Challenges and Opportunities Ahead
Huan Wu, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, Qiuhong Tang, and Philip J. Ward..............................................................323

Index...................................................................................................................................................................327
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Robert F. Adler Weitian Chen

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA Change and Natural Disaster Studies, and
School of Atmospheric Sciences
Amir AghaKouchak Sun Yat‐sen University
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Guangdong, China
and Department of Earth System Science
University of California Irvine Sagy Cohen
Irvine, California, USA Department of Geography
The University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
Ali Ahmadalipour
Center for Complex Hydrosystems Research Simon J. Dadson
Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental School of Geography and the Environment
Engineering Oxford University
The University of Alabama Oxford, United Kingdom
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
Francesco Dottori
Lorenzo Alfieri Disaster Risk Management Unit
Disaster Risk Management Unit European Commission Joint Research Centre
European Commission Joint Research Centre Ispra, Italy
Ispra, Italy; and
CIMA Research Foundation Colin S. Doyle
Savona, Italy Cloud to Street
New York, New York, USA; and
Martha Anderson Department of Geography and the Environment
Agricultural Research Service The University of Texas
United States Department of Agriculture Austin, Texas, USA
Beltsville, Maryland, USA
Li Fang
NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and
Mark Bernhofen Research
School of Civil Engineering College Park, Maryland, USA; and
University of Leeds UMD‐CISESS Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth
Leeds, United Kingdom System Studies
College Park, Maryland, USA
Robert G. Brakenridge
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research Min Feng
University of Colorado National Tibetan Plateau Data Center
Boulder, Colorado, USA Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Mélody Braun Beijing, China; and
Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre University of Chinese Academy Sciences
The Hague, The Netherlands Beijing, China

vii
viii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Zachary Flamig Laura Hoffman‐Hernandez

Center for Data Intensive Science International Research Institute for Climate and Society
University of Chicago The Earth Institute, Columbia University
Chicago, Illinois, USA Palisades, New York, USA

John Galantowicz Matt Horritt

Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc. School of Civil Engineering
Lexington, Massachusetts, USA University of Leeds
Leeds, United Kingdom
Huilin Gao
Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Zequn Huang
Texas A&M University
Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate
College Station, Texas, USA
Change and Natural Disaster Studies, and
Mitchell D. Goldberg School of Atmospheric Sciences
National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Sun Yat‐sen University
Service Guangdong, China
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
College Park, Maryland, USA Saiful A.K.M. Islam
Institute of Water and Flood Management
Helen Greatrex Bangladesh University of Engineering
International Research Institute for Climate and Society and Technology
The Earth Institute, Columbia University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Palisades, New York, USA
Satya Kalluri
Tom de Groeve Raytheon
Disaster Risk Management Unit Upper Marlboro, Maryland, USA
European Commission Joint Research Centre
Ispra, Italy Albert Kettner
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research
Christopher Hain
University of Colorado
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Boulder, Colorado, USA
Huntsville, Alabama, USA

Zengchao Hao John Kimball

College of Water Sciences Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Beijing Normal University Berkeley, California, USA; and
Beijing, China University of Washington
Seattle, Washington, USA
Haixia He
National Disaster Reduction Center of China Andrew Kruczkiewicz
Ministry of Emergency Management of the People’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society
Republic of China The Earth Institute, Columbia University
Beijing, China Palisades, New York, USA; and
Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
Feyera A. Hirpa
The Hague, The Netherlands
School of Geography and the Environment
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom William Kustas
Agricultural Research Service
Jannis Hoch United States Department of Agriculture
Department of Physical Geography Beltsville, Maryland, USA
Utrecht University
Utrecht, The Netherlands; and Dennis P. Lettenmaier
Deltares University of California, Los Angeles
Delft, The Netherlands Los Angeles, California, USA
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS ix

Chaoqun Li Feng Ma
Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate School of Hydrology and Water Resources
Change and Natural Disaster Studies, and Nanjing University of Information Science and
School of Atmospheric Sciences Technology
Sun Yat‐sen University Nanjing, China; and
Guangdong, China Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial
Sciences
Hongyi Li Michigan State University
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering East Lansing, Michigan, USA
University of Houston
Houston, Texas, USA David Marechal
Guy Carpenter & Company GmbH
Sanmei Li Munich, Germany
Department of Geography and Geo‐Information Science
George Mason University
Patrick Matgen
Fairfax, Virginia, USA
Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology
Esch‐sur‐Alzette, Luxembourg
Yao Li
Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Texas A&M University Shanna McClain
College Station, Texas, USA Earth Sciences Division
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington, DC, USA
Dan Lindsey
National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information
Service Hamid Moradkhani
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Center for Complex Hydrosystems Research
Fort Collins, Colorado, USA Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental
Engineering
Jicheng Liu The University of Alabama
NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
Research
College Park, Maryland, USA; and Mahdi Navari
UMD‐CISESS Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
System Studies Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
College Park, Maryland, USA

Jeffrey C. Neal
Brian Llamanzares
School of Geographical Sciences
International Research Institute for Climate and Society
University of Bristol
The Earth Institute, Columbia University
Bristol, United Kingdom
Palisades, New York, USA

Valerio Lorini Miriam Nielsen

Disaster Risk Management Unit International Research Institute for Climate and Society
European Commission Joint Research Centre The Earth Institute, Columbia University
Ispra, Italy Palisades, New York, USA

Lifeng Luo Lace Padilla

Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Department of Psychology
Sciences Northwestern University
Michigan State University Evanston, Illinois, USA
East Lansing, Michigan, USA
x LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Erin Coughlan de Perez Guy J.‐P. Schumann

International Research Institute for Climate and Society School of Geographical Sciences
The Earth Institute, Columbia University University of Bristol
Palisades, New York, USA; and Bristol, United Kingdom; and
Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research
The Hague, The Netherlands; and University of Colorado
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Boulder, Colorado, USA
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Kara Siahaan
Christel Prudhomme
International Federation of Red Cross and Red
European Centre for Medium‐range Weather Forecasts
Crescent Societies
Reading, United Kingdom; and
Geneva, Switzerland
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Wallingford, United Kingdom; and
Department of Geography and Environment Andy Smith
Loughborough University Fathom Global
Loughborough, United Kingdom Bristol, United Kingdom

Arash Modarresi Rad Jonathan A. Sullivan

Department of Computing School for Environment and Sustainability
Boise State University University of Michigan
Boise, Idaho, USA Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Lauro Rossi
CIMA Research Foundation Donglian Sun
Savona, Italy Department of Geography and Geo‐Information
Science
Roberto Rudari George Mason University
CIMA Research Foundation Fairfax, Virginia, USA
Savona, Italy
Qiuhong Tang
Mojtaba Sadegh Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural
Department of Civil Engineering Resources Research
Boise State University Chinese Academy of Sciences
Boise, Idaho, USA Beijing, China
Peter Salamon
Disaster Risk Management Unit Jing Tao
European Commission Joint Research Centre Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center
Ispra, Italy University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland, USA; and
Chris Sampson Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Fathom Global Berkeley, California, USA; and
Bristol, United Kingdom Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Washington
Mitchell Schull Seattle, Washington, USA
NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and
Research Beth Tellman
College Park, Maryland, USA; and Cloud to Street
UMD‐CISESS Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth New York, New York, USA; and
System Studies The Earth Institute, Columbia University
College Park, Maryland, USA Palisades, New York, USA
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xi

Mark A. Trigg Jifu Yin

School of Civil Engineering NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and
University of Leeds Research
Leeds, United Kingdom College Park, Maryland, USA; and
UMD‐CISESS Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth
Philip J. Ward System Studies
Institute for Environmental Studies College Park, Maryland, USA
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Mahkameh Zarekarizi
Albrecht Weerts Center for Complex Hydrosystems Research
Deltares Department of Civil, Construction, and
Delft, The Netherlands; and Environmental Engineering
Wageningen University and Research Centre The University of Alabama
Wageningen, The Netherlands Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA

Huan Wu Xiwu Zhan

School of Atmospheric Sciences NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and
Sun Yat‐sen University Research
Guangdong, China; and College Park, Maryland, USA
Southern Marine Science and Engineering Laboratory
Guangdong, China; and
Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center Shuai Zhang
University of Maryland Department of Geological Sciences
College Park, Maryland, USA University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
Dai Yamazaki
Institute of Industrial Science Fang Zhao
The University of Tokyo Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science
Tokyo, Japan (Ministry of Education)
School of Geographic Sciences
Hongxiang Yan
East China Normal University
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Shanghai, China; and
U. S. Department of Energy
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Richland, Washington, USA
Potsdam, Germany
Siquan Yang
Division of Science and Informatization Gang Zhao
Ministry of Emergency Management of the People’s Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Republic of China Texas A&M University
Beijing, China College Station, Texas, USA

Aizhong Ye
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface and Ecological Ervin Zsoter
Resources European Centre for Medium‐range Weather Forecasts
Faculty of Geographical Science Reading, United Kingdom
Beijing Normal University
Beijing, China
PREFACE
The increase in the frequency of drought and flood
events due to changes in the global water and energy cycle
poses higher risks to human settlements, especially those
in floodplains and areas with frequent heat waves and def-
icit in precipitation, in an era of rapid population growth.
Monitoring and forecasting of the occurrence, intensity,
and evolution of drought and flood events are considered
to be more and more important by humanitarian and
government agencies for issuing timely warnings, moni-
toring ongoing hazards, and developing short‐term and
long‐term risk assessments and management plans. In the
past two decades, there have been significant advances in
both numerical modeling and remote sensing approaches.
These complementary approaches have been critical com-
ponents in producing integrated information for droughts
and floods.
This monograph reviews recent advances in the mod-
eling and remote sensing of droughts and floods, cov-
ering many relevant topics including: (a) the currently
available, widely used techniques and products for obtain-
ing timely and accurate global‐scale or continental‐scale
drought and flood information; (b) the features, strengths
and weaknesses, and advances and challenges in each of
these global products; (c) how these products have been
used by humanitarian, government, and development
sectors in recent natural disaster cases; and (d) discus-
sions about the gaps between the products and end users,
and insights for further improving the workflow in
response activities from perspectives of both hazard
information providers and users.
This book is organized into three closely connected sec-
tions. Part I focuses on remote sensing approaches for
global drought and flood mapping. It starts with an over-
view of progress, challenges, and opportunities in remote
sensing of drought. As critical components for drought
monitoring, two well recognized remote‐sensing‐based
products for evapotranspiration measurement and reser-
voir parameters (elevation, storage, and area) are then
introduced and discussed in the following two chapters.
Two widely used remote‐sensing‐based flood mapping
products are described in the next two chapters, respec-
tively, followed by a thoughtful chapter proposing an
integration of Earth Observation (EO) data and numerical
models, with the latter as the focus of the next section.
Part II summarizes current widely used modeling
approaches and systems, including model physics, f­ eatures,
xiii
validation, strength, limitations, and challenges in their
further improvement and applications. In this section, the
first three chapters are focused on modeling of drought
using statistical, process‐based or hybrid approaches. For
flood modeling, an overview of the state‐of‐the‐art flood
models is presented in a dedicated chapter. An open
challenge for almost all global flood models, i.e., large‐scale
calibration of models, is discussed in the following chapter.
The rest of the section then focuses on two common data
sets, i.e., derivations based on digital elevations model
(DEM), and land use and land cover (LULC), which are
fundamental for both drought and flood simulations.
Part III provides a review of recent advances in drought
and flood damage estimation and risk assessment, and
in‐depth discussions on challenges in humanitarian
response and management activities when integrating the
hazard information from multiple products and data
sources. Flood risk assessment under climate change is
first introduced and discussed. Then practical activities in
hazard response from national and international agencies
are detailed in the next two chapters. The final chapter of
this section describes the emerging role of the Global
Flood Partnership (GFP), a network of scientists, users,
and private and public organizations active in global
flood response and risk management. The GFP shares
flood information in near real‐time for national environ-
mental agencies and humanitarian organizations to
support emergency operations and to reduce the overall
socioeconomic impacts of disasters. A conclusion sum-
marizes the whole book, with a brief discussion on exist-
ing challenges and the strategies of improving the
monitoring and prediction of drought and flood.
Drought and floods have unsurprisingly become the hot
topics of several recently published books. The unique-
ness of this book, however, lies in the fact that: (a) it rep-
resents most of the ongoing modeling efforts, including
current widely used products, and as chapter contributors
are the developers of these products, this allows them to
describe in detail and depth the strengths, weaknesses,
advances and challenges in their further development
and integration; (b) it brings together ­ contributors
from humanitarian, government, and development sec-
tors, describing how these products are used in risk
assessment and catastrophe response activities from a
users’ standpoint, shedding light on how to narrow the
gap between product providers and users in both
xiv Preface
expectation and communication. As a result, this book
should appeal to a broad community of researchers, engi-
neers, practitioners, policy makers, and decision makers,
from various national and international agencies and non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) working in drought
and flood disaster management, and in sustainable and
resilient construction. It should also be of interest to
college students and teachers with interests in subjects
including hydrology, remote sensing, meteorology, natural
hazards, emergency management, and global change.
Last, we note that many of the chapters on floods are
born out of presentations given at recent American
Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting sessions on “Global
Floods: Forecasting, Monitoring, Risk Assessment, and
Socioeconomic Response” and the annual meetings of
the Global Flood Partnership (GFP). These sessions and
meetings foster global flood forecasting, monitoring, and
impact assessment efforts with the aim to strengthen pre-
paredness and response and to reduce global flood losses.
Huan Wu
Sun Yat‐sen University, China
Dennis P. Lettenmaier
University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Qiuhong Tang
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Philip J. Ward
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
 Part I
Remote Sensing for Global
Drought and Flood
Observations
 1
Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities in Remote
Sensing of Drought
Arash Modarresi Rad1, Amir AghaKouchak2, Mahdi Navari3, and Mojtaba Sadegh4

ABSTRACT

Drought, one of the most daunting natural hazards, is linked to other hazards such as heatwaves and wildfires, and
is related to global and regional food security. Given the severe environmental and socioeconomic ramifications of
droughts, comprehensive and timely analysis of droughts’ onset, development, and recovery at proper spatial and
temporal scales is of paramount importance. Droughts are categorized by different variables, such as precipitation,
soil moisture, and streamflow, depending on the target of the analysis. The root cause of droughts, however, is
sustained below‐average precipitation. Large‐scale oceanic and atmospheric circulations drive precipitation vari-
ability, and hence droughts should be analyzed from a continental to global perspective. Given the spatial scale of
interest, as well as the poor spatial resolution and temporal inconsistency of ground observations, multisensor
remotely sensed climatological, hydrological, and biophysical variables offer a unique opportunity to model droughts
from different perspectives (meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, and socioeconomic) and at the global scale.
It is also often required to model droughts using multiple indices and analyze feedbacks between droughts and other
hazards, such as heatwaves. Multiple satellites, ­missions, and sensors offer invaluable information for multi‐indicator
modeling of droughts and their feedbacks with other natural hazards in an era of big data. Remote sensing satellite
data, however, are associated with major challenges including temporal limitations, consistency within and between
multiple sensors and data sets, reliability, lack of uncertainty assessment, managing data volumes, and paucity of
research on translating remote sensing of drought into actionable science. With challenge comes opportunity. The
focus of the scientific community should be on merging the information provided from different satellites and sen-
sors, to underpin their uncertainties, and to offer long‐term and consistent data sets for drought analysis.

1.1. INTRODUCTION

Drought is a recurring natural feature of climate and is

defined as below‐normal precipitation, usually over an
extended period of time (Wilhite & Buchanan‐
1
Department of Computing, Boise State University, Boise, Smith, 2005). Droughts cause billions of dollars of
Idaho, USA damage to multiple sectors globally, specifically to agri-
2
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and culture. Droughts may also cause, or co‐occur with, other
Department of Earth System Science, University of California hazards such as heatwaves, which collectively escalate the
Irvine, Irvine, California, USA
ramifications of this natural hazard (Raei et al. 2018).
3
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland,
USA
Indeed, the concurrence of climatic extremes, in particular
4
Department of Civil Engineering, Boise State University, droughts and heat waves, can result in forest fires
Boise, Idaho, USA (Goulden, 2018; Silva et al., 2018; Taufik et al., 2017),

Global Drought and Flood: Observation, Modeling, and Prediction, Geophysical Monograph 265, First Edition.
Edited by Huan Wu, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, Qiuhong Tang, and Philip J. Ward.
© 2021 American Geophysical Union. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI 10.1002/9781119427339.ch1
3
4 GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD
land degradation and desertification (Hutchinson &
Herrmann, 2016; Olagunju, 2015; Vicente‐Serrano
et al., 2015), water shortage for agriculture and urban
water supply (AghaKouchak, Farahmand, et al., 2015;
Gober et al., 2016; Khorshidi et al., 2019; Van Loon
et al., 2016), and economic impacts, and may prompt
water bankruptcy (Howitt et al., 2014; Madani
et al., 2016). Therefore, the impacts of drought are com-
plex and can propagate to regions outside the area of its
occurrence. Drought is often categorized in four groups:
meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, and socioeco-
nomic (Dracup et al., 1980). Meteorological drought is
defined as precipitation deficiency over a long period,
and it best represents the onset of drought (Utah Division
of Water Resources, 2007). An extended period of mete-
orological drought results in soil moisture deficit as
evapotranspiration continues despite the lack of precipi-
tation, which leads to agricultural drought (Cunha
et al., 2015). Persistence of metrological drought ulti-
mately reduces overall water supply and drought is mani-
fested in a hydrological form (Modaresi Rad et al., 2016).
Socioeconomic drought then occurs as supply and
demand of some economic goods are impacted by mete-
orological, agricultural, and hydrological droughts
(Shiferaw et al., 2014). The observed changes in temporal
patterns of precipitation associated with unsustainable
water withdrawal may escalate the drought severity
around the globe (Mallakpour et al., 2018; U.S. Global
Change Research Program, 2018); and large‐scale
changes in weather patterns are likely to affect water
storage around the globe and threaten water supply par-
ticularly in arid and semi‐arid regions (Ault et al., 2014).
Drought detection requires observation of a plethora
of different climatic and biophysical variables.
Observations in situ, however, do not provide a uniform
spatial distribution and are limited to populated areas,
hence satellite‐based observations provide a unique way
to analyze and monitor drought at a global scale.
Satellites offer observations for a wide range of climate
variables such as precipitation, soil moisture, tempera-
ture, relative humidity, evapotranspiration, vegetation
greenness, land‐cover condition, and water storage
(Aghakouchak, Farahmand, et al., 2015; R. G. Allen
et al., 2007; L. Wang & Qu, 2009; Whitcraft et al., 2015).
Although remote sensing provides more opportunities
for the scientific community to monitor Earth systems
and offer better understanding of drought impact at
regional to global scales, it is not without flaws or chal-
lenges. The main challenge is the insufficient length of
the observed records provided for the variables of
interest. Other challenges include data consistency, ease
of access, quantifying uncertainty, and development of
appropriate drought indices, which will be discussed
throughout this chapter.
1.2. PROGRESS IN REMOTE SENSING
OF DRIVERS OF DROUGHT
This section presents the recent remote sensing tech-
niques used for identification and quantification of
drought as characterized by different climatic and bio-
physical variables.
1.2.1. Precipitation
A meteorological drought can be described as precipita-
tion deficiency over a period of time (WMO, 1975), often
represented in terms of an index of deviation from normal.
Drought indices not only serve the scientific communities
but they are also great tools for facilitating the decision‐
making and policy‐making processes for stakeholders and
managers when compared with the raw data. One of the
most widely used and informative meteorological drought
indices is the standardized precipitation index (SPI) devel-
oped by Mckee et al. (1993). Several other meteorological
drought indices have also been proposed, including, but not
limited to, precipitation effectiveness (Thornthwaite, 1931),
antecedent precipitation (API; McQuigg, 1954), rainfall
anomaly (RAI; Van Rooy, 1965), drought area (Bhalme &
Mooley, 1980), effective precipitation (Byun &
Wilhite, 1999), and rainfall variability indices (Oguntunde
et al., 2011). The SPI is c­urrently being used in many
national operational and research centers and was recog-
nized as a global measure to characterize meteorological
drought by the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO, 2009). Computation of SPI requires measured
rainfall data and a normalization process of monthly data,
either by utilizing an appropriate probability distribution
function (PDF) to transform the rainfall PDF (e.g., gamma
or Pearson type III probability distribution) into a standard
normal distribution (Khalili et al., 2011), or by utilizing a
nonparametric approach (Hao & AghaKouchak, 2014).
Precipitation deficit can be specified for different timescales
(e.g., from 1 to 24 months) when using SPI, where precipi-
tation abnormalities in shorter timescales reflect soil mois-
ture wet/dry conditions and longer timescales portray the
wet/dry conditions of subsequent processes such as stream-
flow, reservoir levels, and ultimately groundwater.
Since the root cause of droughts is deficit in precipita-
tion, meteorological drought indices, and in particular SPI,
are suitable indices for revealing the onset of drought (Hao
& Aghakouchak, 2013). Indeed, precipitation is regarded
as a key component in drought ­ analysis. Clustering
approaches have been used as a common practice to iden-
tify spatially homogeneous drought areas by utilizing mete-
orological drought indices such as SPI (Santos et al., 2010).
Assessment of temporal variability of metrological drought
utilizing SPI, however, has shown formation of nonco-
herent clusters in spatiotemporal clustering (Modaresi Rad

(a)
Average rain rate 1998 – 2011 (mm day–1)
1998 – 2011
0 7.5 15
Figure 1.1 Rainfall map by NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. (a) Average rate of
­rainfall per day for the period of 1998‐2011. (b) A tropical storm in southeast Texas causing record‐breaking
floods, produced using the IMERG precipitation product. (Courtesy: NASA’s Earth observatory: https://
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images)
& Khalili, 2015). This is due to precipitation’s large spatial
variability, which creates diverse spatial patterns even
at small scales. Considering spatial variability of precipita-
tion is crucial, since a dense and evenly distributed network
of gauging stations is required for describing spatiotem-
poral characteristics of drought. Similarly, ground‐based
weather radars also suffer from spatial discontinuity and
are error prone due to contamination by surface back-
scatter, uncertainty of approximation of relation between
reflectivity and rain rate, and bright band effects, making
them unfeasible for global applications (Kidd et al., 2012;
Wolff & Fisher, 2008). As a result, a more robust approach
would be to use satellite observations that would produce
gridded data as an input not only for drought models, but
also for meteorological and hydrological models such as
weather research and forecasting (WRF) and variable infil-
tration capacity (VIC).
Visible (VIS) satellite images provide information about
cloud thickness and infrared (IR) images provide
information on cloud top temperature and cloud height
that are used to estimate precipitation rate via different
retrieval algorithms (Joyce & Arkin, 1997; Sapiano &
Arkin, 2009; Turk et al., 1999). Geostationary (GEO) VIS/
IR satellites offer approximately a 15–30 min frequency of
observations, but their accuracies are disputed. On the
other hand, passive microwave (MW) sensors capture data
of hydrometeor signals and scattering signals of raindrops,
snow, and ice contents in the lower atmosphere and sense
the bulk emission from liquid water, and therefore provide
a more accurate estimation of precipitation rate (Behrangi
et al., 2014). The MW sensors, however, often face diffi-
culties distinguishing between light rain and clouds and
have less frequent overpass (almost two observations per a
REMOTE SENSING OF DROUGHT 5
(b)
Satellite estimateds show
rainfall totals reaching 75 cm (30 in)
in parts of southeast Texas
Gul f of Mexi co
50 km N
Total rainfall (cm) September 17 – 20, 2019
0 25 50 75
day). Therefore, it is suggested that a combination of both
MW and VIS/IR satellite observations can result in more
accurate estimations (Joyce et al., 2004). Currently, a
variety of precipitation satellite data sets or products exist,
amongst which that of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring
Mission (TRMM) has found notable success towards
improving the forecast of extreme events (Figure 1.1a).
This data set is a joint mission between the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that
advances the understanding of tropical rainfalls over the
ocean by providing three‐dimensional images. The mission
was launched in 1997 and terminated in 2015, and the
project was continued in 2014 by NASA’s Goddard Space
Flight Center and JAXA as Global Precipitation
Measurement (GPM), with a new calibration standard for
the rest of the satellite constellation and a core observatory
that possessed a Dual‐frequency Precipitation Radar
(DPR) and a GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) (Hou
et al., 2014). Other satellite precipitation data sets include
the Climate Predicting Center (CPC) Morphing Technique
(CMORPH; Joyce et al., 2004), CPC Merged Analysis of
Precipitation (CMAP; Xie & Arkin, 1997), TRMM
Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA; Huffman
et al., 2007), Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I;
Ferraro, 1997), Global Precipitation Climatology Project
(GPCP; Adler et al., 2003), Precipitation Estimation from
Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural
Networks (PERSIANN; Figure 1.2; Ashouri et al., 2015;
Hsu et al., 1997; S. Sorooshian et al., 2000), and the new
GPM mission known as the Integrated MultisatellitE
Retrievals for GPM (IMERG; Figure 1.1b; Huffman
et al., 2015).
6 GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD

Countries
Latest 12 h Precipitation (mm)
0
0 –1
1–2
3–4
4–5
4–5
5–7
7–10
10–13
13–15
15–20
20–25
25–30
30–35
35–40
40–50
50–75
75–100
100–125
125–150
150–200
200–300
300–400
400–500
500–600
>600
No data

0 1100 2200 3300 4400 5500 km

Figure 1.2 Near real‐time 0.04° precipitation information provided by the Global Water and Development
Information (G‐WADI) map server of University California at Irvine using the PERSIANN‐Cloud Classification
System (PERSIANN‐CCS).

One of the major challenges associated with satellite
precipitation data is measurement or inference uncer-
tainty due to the presence of uncorrected biases (A.
Sorooshian et al., 2008). Studies have shown that although
TMPA can be used to produce reliable results when
driving hydrological models for monthly streamflow
simulation, it does not perform well at the daily time-
scale (Meng et al., 2014). Since precipitation is a key
variable in hydrology, the problem with uncertainty is
further aggravated if it is left untreated in drought mon-
itoring and hydrological modeling. As a result, several
post‐processing techniques have been developed for
bias correction (Khajehei et al., 2018; Madadgar &
Moradkhani, 2014). For further information regarding
the validation process against ground‐based measure-
ments, interested reader is referred to AghaKouchak
et al. (2012), Lu et al. (2018), Mateus et al. (2016),
Nasrollahi et al. (2013), Y. Tian et al. (2009), and Xu
et al. (2017). Another limitation of satellite precipita-
tion data is associated with their short length of record.
Drought analysis requires at least a minimum of 30
years of data (Mckee et al., 1993). Therefore, the near‐
real‐time satellite precipitation products such as GPCP
with nearly 19 years of recorded data cannot single‐
handedly be used to develop drought‐monitoring sys-
tems. To remedy this shortcoming, near‐real‐time
satellite data are combined with the long‐term GPCP to
produce the required t­imespan for drought calculation
(AghaKouchak & Nakhjiri, 2012). In their study,
AghaKouchak and Nakhjiri (2012) used a merged prod-
uct of GPCP (1979–2009) and PERSIANN (2010 to the
present) in a Bayesian data‐merging framework to pro-
duce a near‐real‐time meteorological drought moni-
toring system using SPI.
1.2.2. Soil Moisture
Agricultural drought is a result of precipitation deficit
plus accumulated evapotranspiration over a prolonged
period of time that eventually leads to extended periods of
low soil moisture that affect crop yields and livestock pro-
duction (Cunha et al., 2015). Agricultural drought disrupts
the chain of supply and demand of agricultural products
and contributes to socioeconomic drought (Wilhite &
Glantz, 1985). Soil moisture is a key component of agri-
cultural drought and defines the readily available water
that plants can access from the soil through their root
system. Soil moisture regulates the water and energy
exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere. It
also influences the partitioning of nonintercepted precipi-
tation into surface runoff and infiltrations and influences
the partitioning of net radiation into sensible, latent, and
ground heat fluxes that are essential climate variables
(WMO, 2006). Soil moisture condition directly reflects
ecosystem functionality and agricultural productivity,
therefore an agricultural drought influences the economy
at local to global scales (IPCC, 2007; Ryu et al., 2014).
Warm surface temperature and rapidly decreasing soil
moisture due to a lack of precipitation and hot tempera-
tures are associated with rapidly developing drought con-
ditions that are often known as “flash droughts” (M. C.
Anderson et al., 2013; Otkin et al., 2016). Ford et al.
 REMOTE SENSING OF DROUGHT 7

Monitoring

D4 D3 D2 D1 D0 W0 W1 W2 W3 W4

Figure 1.3 Near real‐time drought monitoring and prediction system by the Global Integrated Drought Monitoring
and Prediction System (GIDMaPS) using the Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSI) for February 2016 based on
the Modern‐Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) data set. D0 indicates abnormally
dry; D1 moderate drought; D2 severe drought; D3 extreme drought; D4 exceptional drought; and the same
applies to wetness (W) scale.

(2015) demonstrated that measurements of soil moisture
in situ would drastically enhance the identification of
flash droughts. Therefore, identification and quantifica-
tion of drought at different timescales with high‐resolu-
tion satellite imagery is crucial for decision making and
developing drought mitigation strategies (D’Odorico
­ International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) (http://
et al., 2010). Several drought indices have been proposed
to address deficiency in soil moisture, including the Crop
Moisture Index (CMI; Palmer, 1965), Keetch–Byram
Drought Index (KBDI; Keetch & Byram, 1968), Soil
Moisture Percentile (Sheffield et al., 2004), Soil Moisture
Deficit Index (SMDI; Narasimhan & Srinivasan, 2005),
Scaled Drought Condition Index (SDCI) that uses multi-
sensor data (Rhee et al., 2010), Microwave Integrated
Drought Index (MIDI) that integrates precipitation, soil
moisture, and land surface temperature derived from
microwave sensors such as TRMM and AMSR‐E (Zhang
& Jia, 2013), Soil Moisture Drought Index (SODI;
Sohrabi et al., 2015), and Standardized Soil Moisture
Index (SSI; Hao & Aghakouchak, 2013; Figure 1.3).
What is required for agricultural drought and land sur-
face models is the water content of the plant root zone in
soil. This requires observatories in situ that are able to
measure soil‐water content at deeper layers of soil and
provide more accurate estimations of soil moisture for
purposes of drought monitoring as well as validation of
satellite estimations of soil moisture. The cosmic‐ray soil
moisture observing system (COSMOS; Zreda et al., 2012)
and the German terrestrial environmental observatories
(TERENO; Zacharias et al., 2011) are two examples
of such in situ measurement networks. Moreover, the
www.ipf.tuwien.ac.at/insitu) provides a long record of
global in situ soil moisture data, however, these measure-
ments are typically available at point scales and contain
significant spatial and temporal gaps. While point‐based
measurements are time consuming and costly, passive
and active microwave sensor data retrieved from satellites
readily provide spatiotemporally consistent observations
of soil moisture from the top 5 cm of soil (Entekhabi
et al., 2010; L. Wang & Qu, 2009). Given that agricultural
drought monitoring requires information about soil
moisture content of the entire soil column (i.e., surface
and root zone), remotely sensed soil moisture data alone
are not adequate for drought monitoring and comple-
mentary information about root zone soil moisture needs
to be provided using modeling and data assimilation (e.g.,
Mladenova et al. 2019). Surface soil moisture data are
derived mainly from passive or active microwave satellites
(De Jeu et al., 2008; Njoku et al., 2003; Takada et al., 2009;
Wagner et al., 1999). Currently, the Soil Moisture Active
Passive (SMAP; Figure 1.4; Entekhabi et al., 2010) and
8 GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD
(a)
500 km
Soil Moisture (m3 water/m3 soil)
May 27–31, 2015
0 0.05 0.15 0.25 0.35 0.45 0.55 0.65
Figure 1.4 Soil moisture observation by NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite. (a) Soil moisture
observation of the United States. (b) Global view. (Courtesy of NASA’s earth observatory: https://earthobservatory.
nasa.gov/images).
the Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS; Kerr
et al., 2010) missions are the main sources of the remote‐
sensing‐based soil moisture estimates. These data sets
have been used extensively for drought monitoring (e.g.,
Mishra et al., 2017; Sadri et al., 2018; Sánchez et al., 2016).
Soil moisture also can be inferred from other microwave
sensors (Entekhabi et al., 2010; Martínez‐Fernández
et al., 2016; Moradkhani, 2008; Scaini et al., 2015) such
as: the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer
(SMMR), the SSM/I, the European Remote Sensing
(ERS) scatterometer, the TRMM microwave imager,
the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT), and Advanced
Microwave Scanning Radiometer2 (AMSR2). Long‐term
soil moisture data appropriate for monitoring drought
can be obtained through certain databases such as
the Water Cycle Multimission Observation Strategy
(WACMOS), which is derived from multiple satellites
(Ambaw, 2013). Similarly, the European Space Agency’s
Climate Change Initiative (ESA CCI) offers a soil‐mois-
ture data set with a record of over 30 years that is partic-
ularly suitable for monitoring agricultural drought. The
ESA CCI merges soil moisture retrievals of a number of
different satellites and provides three types of product:
active microwave, passive microwave, and combined
active–passive microwave (Gruber et al., 2019). The ESA
CCI soil‐moisture data set, however, has large gaps over
densely vegetated areas. Martínez‐Fernández et al. (2016)
show the reliability of the CCI soil‐moisture data set for
purposes of modeling agricultural drought.
Monitoring agricultural drought requires high‐resolu-
tion data to reveal detailed variations of soil moisture. To
improve the spatial resolution of soil moisture data, sev-
eral downscaling methods have been used, such as
(b)
Soil Moisture (cm3 water/cm3 soil)
May 27–31, 2015
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
machine learning frameworks (Im et al., 2016; Park
et al., 2017), DISaggregation based on Physical And
Theoretical scale CHange (DISPATCH) which uses
shortwave and thermal data from Moderate‐Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to downscale
SMOS data (Merlin et al., 2015), and Smoothing Filter‐
based Intensity Modulation (SFIM) which integrates
microwave data from SMAP, Sentinel‐1, and AMSR2 to
downscale soil moisture data to an enhanced resolution
of 0.1° × 0.1° (Santi et al. 2018).
1.2.3. Relative Humidity
Water vapor has a significant influence on Earth’s cli-
mate and energy distribution as it displaces nearly half
the trapped heat in an upward and poleward direction
and is considered a natural greenhouse gas (Sherwood
et al., 2010). Advances in remote sensing have made it
possible to monitor water vapor and relative humidity
through satellite sensors. Relative humidity is defined as
the amount of water available in air with respect to the
required water vapor for saturation at a specific tempera-
ture. Remotely sensed relative humidity data can be
used as an early detection variable to monitor drought
(Farahmand et al., 2015). A recently proposed
Standardized Relative Humidity Index (SRHI) offers
potential information about early drought detection and
can be used in conjunction with other indices such as SPI
or the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI; Palmer,
1965) for drought monitoring and early warning systems
(Farahmand et al., 2015; Figure 1.5). Studies also show
that a combination of near‐surface air temperature,
vapor pressure deficit, and relative humidity can enhance

(a) 3-month SRHI August 2010
(b) Probability of drought detection
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Figure 1.5 Standardized Relative Humidity Index (SRHI) for (a) August 2010, (b) probability of drought detection,
and (c) missed drought ratio, which indicates that relative humidity can be used in conjunction with other
drought indices for early detection of drought onset (Farahmand et al., 2015).
the detection of drought onset (Behrangi et al., 2016). To
detect onset of drought, Farahmand et al. (2015) used the
Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS20) satellite’s
relative humidity data and developed a SRHI. The AIRS
mission provides relative humidity data with a spatial res-
olution of 1° and covers a period ranging from 2002 to
present. The authors suggested that due to the limited
period of recorded data from AIRS for the purposes of
drought analysis (< 30 years), the Gravity Recovery and
Climate Experiment (GRACE) observations, Evaporative
Stress Index data, and a combination of AIRS and
reanalysis data sets could be used to extend the observa-
tion records.
Measurements of relative humidity via remote sensing
are often undertaken with IR‐based observing platforms
(e.g., the AIRS20) (Fetzer et al., 2006; B. Tian et al., 2004).
However, clouds tend to bias the IR observations, which
is a major limiting factor since no observation of wet
conditions will be available after a strict cloud screening
(John et al., 2011). Another major issue is the variation of
relative humidity due to changes in saturated vapor
pressure, as it is significantly influenced by air tempera-
ture. Therefore, even with a fixed water vapor content,
changes in air temperature will result in variations in
relative humidity (Moradi et al., 2016). On the other
hand, microwave sounder retrievals can produce large
errors owing to modeling errors of Earth’s limb radiances
(e.g., Microwave Limb Sounder) (Lambert et al., 2007).
REMOTE SENSING OF DROUGHT 9
–2
(c) Missed drought
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
In general, too much uncertainty arises from observa-
tions of water vapor in diurnal and spatial distribution of
the troposphere (Boyle & Klein, 2010), and having a
course resolution of 2–3 km in both IR and microwave
sounders, these instruments are unable to portray a
detailed vertical structure of water vapor.
Vergados et al. (2015) used the Global Positioning
System Radio Occultation (GPSRO) observations from
the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology,
Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) mission that
resolved the challenges associated with the presence of
cloud. The authors demonstrated that the GPSRO‐
derived relative humidity data possess high quality.
Sondeur Atmosphérique du Profil d’Humidité
Intertropicale par Radiométrie (SAPHIR) from the
Megha Tropiques satellite provides relative humidity data
with temporal resolution of several observations per day
and has six channels specifically for the water vapor
absorption line at 183 GHz with a spatial resolution of
10 km at nadir for all the channels. Using the measure-
ments of SAPHIR, Moradi et al. (2016) found larger
diurnal amplitude over land compared to the ocean;
larger oceanic amplitude over convective regions com-
pared to subsidence regions; and showed that in tropical
regions, relative humidity of the troposphere showed
large inhomogeneity in diurnal variation. Brogniez et al.
(2016) further improved the relative humidity estimates
from the SAPHIR Sounder by producing uncertainty
10 GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD
estimates of the relative humidity through a Bayesian
framework. Studies also suggested the appropriateness
of using algorithms based on data from satellites such as
the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR),
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental
Satellites (GOES), and MODIS to derive estimates of
the surface level relative humidity (Han et al., 2005;
Ramírez‐Beltrán et al., 2019).
The frequency of unusually dry and hot conditions has
increased in various parts of the world (Griffin &
Anchukaitis, 2014; Seager & Hoerling, 2014). Some
studies reported that the ever‐increasing anthropogenic
radiative forcing is responsible for the recent changes in
Earth’s hydrological cycle (Chikamoto et al., 2017; Littell
et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2015). Chikamoto et al. (2017)
demonstrated that droughts enhance wildfire probabilities
in forested systems that take a huge toll on the economy,
environment, and local communities in the countryside.
Wildfire smoke tremendously increases the level of
air pollution and therefore proliferates mortality, and
respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity. Accurate
measurement of relative humidity is essential for
retrieving Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) and quanti-
fying particulate matter (PM). Aerosol optical thickness
can be derived from the MODIS on board NASA’s Terra
and Aqua satellites. The humid air surrounding hygro-
scopic aerosols causes swelling and this will substantially
increase the scattering efficiency of the particles (Hess
et al., 1998; Twohy et al., 2009). Gupta et al. (2006) found
that a relative humidity ranging from 50% to 80% would
increase AOT less than 5%, whereas a relative humidity
range of 98–99% results in a more pronounced increase
(more than 25%). These results indicate that relative
humidity data can be used to enhance the measurements
of PM and devise mitigation strategies (Bowman &
Johnston, 2005) to reduce the adverse impacts of the
hazard (i.e., drought‐associated events such as wildfires).
1.2.4. Evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important variable in
agriculture, accurate estimation of which is essential
for modeling agricultural drought. Evapotranspiration
directly affects socioeconomic systems and agriculture, as
irrigation water demand and crop yield are determined
by this variable. Ecosystem and agriculture responses to
drought are depicted by the ratio between actual ET
(AET) and potential ET (PET) (Thornthwaite, 1948).
Accordingly, several drought indices have been proposed
that incorporate ET into their calculation including the
PDSI, Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI; Jackson
et al., 1981), Supply–Demand Drought Index (SDDI;
Rind et al., 1990), Water Deficit Index (WDI; Moran
et al., 1994), Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI;
Tsakiris & Vangelis, 2005), Evaporative Drought Index
(EDI; Yao et al., 2010), Standardized Precipitation
Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI; Vicente‐Serrano
et al., 2010), Evaporative Stress Index (ESI; M. C.
Anderson et al., 2016), Drought Severity Index (DSI; Mu
et al., 2013), Green Water Scarcity Index (GWSI; Núñez
et al., 2013), Green Water Stress Index (GrWSI;
Wada, 2013), Standardized Palmer Drought Index
(SPDI; Ma et al., 2014), Multivariate Drought Index
(MDI; Rajsekhar et al., 2015), effective Reconnaissance
Drought Index (eRDI; Tigkas et al., 2017), Normalized
Ecosystem Drought Index (NEDI; Chang et al., 2018),
and Aggregate Drought Index (ADI; S. Wang et al., 2018).
Both RDI and SPEI are widely used water‐balance‐
system agricultural drought indices that utilize precipita-
tion and PET as their input (Tsakiris et al., 2007;
Vicente‐Serrano et al., 2010). While SPEI uses the
Penman–Monteith method to derive PET (Figure 1.6),
RDI utilizes temperature‐based methods to estimate
PET and can use satellite‐retrieved air temperature data
(Dalezios et al., 2012). Recently, Tigkas et al. (2017) mod-
ified the RDI index by substituting precipitation by effec-
tive precipitation (the amount of water that contributes
to crop development and is absorbed by the root system),
which can more effectively describe plant water consump-
tion. The modified index (eRDI) has the advantage of
considering different stages of crop development and has
shown higher correlation to reduction of crop yield in the
location studied (Tigkas et al., 2017). Despite the advan-
tages of utilizing the temperature‐based method of PET,
it suffers from several shortcomings as other factors such
as net radiation, wind speed, and relative humidity that
have strong influence on PET are being neglected in the
process (Donohue et al., 2010; McVicar et al., 2012). Ma
et al. (2014) outlined some issues regarding the climatic
water balance system used by SPEI and suggested that
SPEI would be more realistic if soil‐moisture‐related
hydrometeorological processes are considered. They
redefined the procedure of PDSI calculation on the basis
of the mathematical framework of SPEI and proposed
a new multiscalar drought index. While indices such as
SPI or PDSI can be used as early warning systems to
detect potential drought imposed on an ecosystem, NEDI
offers an actual drought stress response to limited water
availability.
The remotely sensed methods of ET estimation can be
categorized into four groups, including water balance sys-
tems (R. G. Allen et al., 1998; Senay, 2008), surface energy
balance systems (R. G. Allen et al., 2007; Anderson &
Kustas, 2008), vegetation indices (Glenn et al., 2011), and
hybrid approaches that incorporate vegetation indices
and surface temperature measurements (Kalma
et al., 2008; Yang & Shang, 2013). MODIS data have
 REMOTE SENSING OF DROUGHT 11

(a)

(b) SPEI time series at cell [9.25, 31.25]

1954/7: SPEI_3: 1.615
3

–1

–2
–3
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Figure 1.6 Three‐month Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) with 1° spatial resolution. (a)
Global view of SPEI for November 2018. (b) Time series of SPEI for 9.25° E and 31.25° S in Africa. (Source: The
Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), http://spei.csic.es/map/maps.html)

been frequently used worldwide to obtain land surface
temperature data and derive ET for purposes of drought
monitoring such as estimation of Evaporative Stress
Index (ESI; Figure 1.7; M. C. Anderson et al., 2007) and
DSI. Some other satellites capable of measuring land sur-
face temperature include Advanced Spaceborne Thermal
Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on board
Terra, Landsat, AVHRR on board polar orbiting plat-
forms of NOAA, and visible and infrared imager
(MVIRI) on board Meteosat satellites. The ECOsystem
Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space
Station (ECOSTRESS) is a multiple wavelength imaging
spectrometer that was launched on 29 June 2018 to the
International Space Station (ISS) that provides ET
estimates. This product has a spatial resolution of ~70 m
and temporal resolution of approximately 3 days and is
variable depending on ISS. Different ECOSTRESS data
products are available for download through the United
States Geological Survey (USGS) satellite image query
tool (https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/).
1.2.5. Snow
Snow and ice are key components of the hydrological
cycle. The lack of snow and ice storage in the snow‐
dominated regions significantly impacts the availability
of water throughout the dry seasons, and influences
­reservoir operation, flood risk management, recreation,
12 GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD

(a) (b)

250 km 250 km
Evaporative Stress Evaporative Stress
June–August 2016
23 November 2016 to 15 February 2017
Less More Less More

Figure 1.7 Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) derived from observations of land surface temperatures and leaf area
index from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites
and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) of the Suomi National Polar‐orbiting Partnership (NPP).
(a) The drought in New England that put crops and businesses under stress. (b) The drought that reduced food
production and increased famine in the Greater Horn of Africa. (Courtesy: NASA’s earth observatory: https://
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images)

tourism, energy production, navigation, and river ecology
(Staudinger et al., 2014). Therefore, snow shortage in
snow‐dominated mountain watersheds drives a range of
adverse economic and social outcomes. Studies suggest
that the occurrence of earlier peak discharge in western
United States due to a warmer climate results in increased
periods of summer water stress, which can in turn change
forest structure (Harpold et al., 2014; Harpold, 2016).
The continuous changes in the climate of snow‐domi-
nated watersheds (i.e., less snow, more rain, and earlier
snowmelt) motived researchers to introduce the concept
of snow drought (Hatchett & McEvoy, 2018). Only a
little research has been undertaken, however, with
­ temperature at the end of winter drives this type of snow
respect to developing a snow‐based indicator of drought.
Currently, there is no generally accepted classification
scheme for snow droughts. Three key metrics, the peak
snow water equivalent (SWE), the date of peak SWE
(DPS), and the snow disappearance date (SDD), how-
ever, have been used to characterize snow drought in the
mountainous watersheds. The concept of snow drought
can be defined as below‐average SWE at approximately
when the maximum SWE typically occurs (Hatchett &
McEvoy, 2018). Different definitions of snow drought
have been proposed throughout the literature, including
Van Loon and Van Lanen (2012) and Harpold et al. (2017).
Van Loon and Van Lanen (2012) described different
scenarios of snow related drought according to their
development: (a) rain‐to‐snow season drought, (b) cold
snow season drought, and (c) warm snow season drought.
Rain‐to‐snow season drought is developed due to a short-
age of rainfall in the rain season (spring, summer and/or
autumn) and ends in snow season (winter) with precipi-
tation being in the form of snow. Consequently, soil
moisture, streamflow, and groundwater remain relatively
low until the upcoming melt season. Cold snow season
drought is a result of abnormally low temperature in the
snow season and a possible coincidence with below‐
average precipitation that can be categorized into three
subtypes of A, B, and C. Subtype A describes climates
with continuous snow cover during winter and below
zero temperature. Early beginning of the snow season is
the main driver of this drought type. Subtype B has the
same climate as A, however, delay in snowmelt due to low
drought. Subtype C is climate with a temperature around
zero and limited snow accumulation in winter. Snowmelt
often provides recharge to groundwater and streamflow
during snow season. An abnormal temperature drop in
winter results in an intermediate shortage of water for a
few weeks to months duration.
Harpold et al. (2017) divided snow drought into two
categories: (a) warm snow drought, where accumulated
precipitation during October–March is larger than the
long‐term average and SWE on 1st April is less than
the long‐term average; (b) dry snow drought, where
accumulated precipitation for the same period is less
than the long‐term average and SWE on 1st April is
less than the long‐term average SWE.
In addition to the conceptual definition of snow
drought, operational systems require relevant indicators
to monitor snow drought. These indicators should pro-
vide insight on frequency, severity, and duration of snow
 REMOTE SENSING OF DROUGHT 13

drought and help to develop prevention and mitigation
strategies (Paneque, 2015). Indices such as SPI or PDSI
are widely used to characterize hydrological droughts,
however, these indices do not explicitly account for the
effects of snow on water availability in snow‐dominated
watersheds (Mote et al., 2016). Staudinger et al. (2014)
proposed a drought index that would account for snow.
This new index, termed Standardized Snow Melt and
Rain Index (SMRI), is calculated similar to the SPI but
uses summation of snowmelt and rain as input. The
authors proposed an algorithm based on temperature
threshold that does not require snow data and utilizes
temperature and precipitation to model snow. It should
be noted that the output of any snow model could be
used to calculate the index. Knowles et al. (2017) devel-
oped a snow aridity index (SAI) to assess ecosystem
disturbance based on a long history of snow remote
­ conjunction with data from ground‐based observation
­sensing. The SAI is defined as a ratio of the sum of 1st
April to 31st August PET to maximum SWE (𝑃𝐸𝑇/𝑆𝑊𝐸;
Figure 1.8). It can be argued that SAI is a suitable index
for characterizing snow drought since it uses both
potential evapotranspiration and SWE (Knowles
­ higher identification accuracy. The NDFSI utilizes near‐
et al., 2017, 2018).
Snowpack is often characterized in terms of snow
albedo (SA), snow depth (SD), SWE, DPS, snow covered
area (SCA), and fractional snow‐covered area (fSCA)
(Kongoli et al., 2012). Remote sensing can effectively
describe the relationship between snowpack dynamics
and climate variability (Guan et al., 2012). Using remote
sensing techniques and retrieval algorithms to measure
snow‐related variables may provide insight for real‐time
snow drought monitoring. The following provides a very
short review of different remote sensing data and prod-
ucts that can be used to characterize snowpack.
Snow possesses a strong spectral gradient that ranges
from high albedo in visible wavelengths to low reflectance
in middle infrared wavelengths. Therefore, a commonly
used method such as the band ratios can be utilized to
map and monitor snow cover (Lettenmaier et al., 2015).
The Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) is one
that shows the presence of snow on the ground. The
NDSI algorithm distinguishes between snow and most
cloud types, therefore, it better characterizes the snow
cover areas than fSCA. The NDSI utilizes the reflectance
ratios to detect snow and is described as the normalized
difference between green and SWIR reflectance
(RGreen− RSWIR2)/(RGreen + RSWIR2) (Hall et al., 2002).
Hatchett and McEvoy (2018) suggested using NDSI in
networks to monitor snow drought. In forested regions,
however, the NDSI has shown poor snow identification
accuracy and the recently developed Normalized
Difference Forest Snow Index (NDFSI) can produce
infrared in place of the green band, which has a higher
reflectance that is useful when there is snow in a forested
area (X. Y. Wang et al., 2015).
Several satellites are capable of detecting fSCA, such as
the AVHRR, MODIS, and Landsat. However, a common
issue with AVHRR is the inadequacy of its 1 km spatial
resolution for snow mapping on small catchments
(Simpson et al., 1998; H. Xu et al., 1993). Rott et al.
(2010) suggested that the Cold Regions Hydrology High‐
Resolution Observatory (CoReH2O) from the ESA

(a) (b)

N 100 km N 100 km
Fractional snow cover (%) Fractional snow cover (%)
25 January 2016 29 January 2018
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

Figure 1.8 A below‐normal snowpack observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
on NASA’s Terra satellite. (a) Percent of fractional snow cover on 25 January 2016. (b) Below normal conditions
in 29 January 2018. (Courtesy of NASA’s earth observatory: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images)
14 GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD
would deliver accurate and spatially detailed observa-
tions of snow mass. MODIS and Landsat Thematic
Mapper (TM) alleviate this shortcoming to some extent
by offering observations with a spatial resolution of
250 m and 30 m, respectively (Hall et al., 2002). A major
concern regarding the optical‐based satellites, however,
is the discontinuity of observations due to the presence
of clouds. Clouds hinder the spatiotemporal consistency
of snow cover due to having similar reflectance properties
to snow in a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum
(Aghakouchak, Farahmand, et al., 2015). On the other
hand, microwave measurements can be used to estimate
fSCA and SD even in the presence of clouds, since they
do not depend on sunlight reflection. Similar to optical‐
based satellites, the microwave observations become
flawed once SD exceeds 30 cm and in melting conditions
(Foster et al., 1997; Walker & Goodison, 1993). Therefore,
more accurate and consistent measurements of SD
retrievals can be achieved through an integrated frame-
work by combining observations from both types of
­satellites (Durand et al., 2008; Foster et al., 2011). In an
effort to simulate the spatiotemporal distribution of
SWE in mountainous regions, the NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO)
provides near‐weekly lidar surveys. The derived SDs
obtained from lidar scanners are then assimilated into
hydrological models to produce higher temporal resolu-
tion of SWE distribution and volume. Recently, Hedrick
et al. (2018) combined the iSnobal physically based dis-
tributed snowmelt model with ASO and produced daily
SWE images with spatial resolution of 50 m.
Snow water equivalent is a critical parameter for
hydrological applications and the characterization of
­ hydrological cycle relations (Van Loon et al., 2016). The
snowpacks, and is commonly estimated using passive
microwave signals utilizing empirical relationships or
radiative transfer models. Well‐known limitations of
spaceborne passive microwave data, such as coarse
spatial resolution, saturation in deep snowpack, and
signal loss in wet snow, however, present major draw-
backs for passive microwave retrieval algorithms. Brodzik
et al. (2016) developed high‐resolution passive microwave
brightness temperature data that can be used to improve
the SWE estimate in mountainous regions with complex
physiography.
Peak SWE is an important variable in snow hydrology,
traditionally, 1st April has been set as the date of peak
SWE, however, many studies have shown that the peak
SWE happens at different times. Margulis et al. (2016)
showed that the assumption of 1st April peak SWE can
lead to a significant underestimation of peak SWE. They
also highlighted the role of elevation and interannual var-
iability of peak SWE in the Sierra Nevada (California).
Snow models and observations in situ are complemen-
tary tools that can be used in conjunction with remote
sensing to accurately estimate the peak SWE and the date
of peak SWE.
Although application of snow‐based drought indices
for drought monitoring by remote sensing has been
increased recently (Knowles et al., 2017; Sadegh, Love,
et al., 2017; Staudinger et al., 2014), the majority of
research incorporates satellite observations of snow data
into land‐surface and climate models (He et al., 2011;
Kumar et al. 2014, Margulis et al., 2006, 2016). Global
drought models based on snow are primarily challenged
by the time lag between occurrences of precipitation as
snow and changes in ground and surface waters that
could vary between weeks to months depending on
catchment characteristics and climate (Aghakouchak,
Farahmand, et al., 2015; Van Loon & Van Lanen, 2012).
As a final note, interested readers are encouraged
to explore the different snow drought tools available
online at (https://www.drought.gov/drought/data‐maps‐
tools/snow‐drought).
1.2.6. Groundwater
Prolonged meteorological droughts can severely
affect groundwater levels and the problem is further
exacerbated if it is followed by an anthropogenic
­
drought (AghaKouchak, Feldman, et al., 2015; Alborzi
et al. 2018). A decrease in groundwater recharge results in
lower groundwater discharge and storage, a condition
that is defined as a groundwater drought (Mishra &
Singh, 2010). The lack of any imposed restriction for
groundwater abstraction enhances hydrological drought,
which is often overlooked due to poor understanding of
overuse of groundwater due to anthropogenic influences
not only magnifies the drought condition, but also can
cause permanent damage such as decreases in ground-
water storage capacity and subsequent land subsidence
(Famiglietti et al., 2011; Faunt et al., 2015; Taravatrooy
et al. 2018). The lack of continuous spatiotemporal mea-
surements of groundwater levels at a groundwater moni-
toring station (well) makes it difficult to characterize
groundwater drought; however, with the launch of the
GRACE satellites it has become possible to study the
dynamics of water storages at a global scale (Wahr
et al., 2006). The GRACE (2002–2017) and GRACE
Follow‐On (2018 to present) satellites monitor changes in
water storage compring groundwater, surface water reser-
voir, soil moisture, and snow water storage components.
The GRACE missions provide global changes in total
water storage by converting gravity anomalies into changes
of water equivalent height (Rodell & Famiglietti, 2002;
Figure 1.9). The observed terrestrial water storage (TWS)
from GRACE has spatial resolution of 150,000 km2
per grid that cannot be used for regional assessments;
 REMOTE SENSING OF DROUGHT 15

Glaciers
melting

Groundwater
Okavango depletion
floods

Glaciers
melting High latitude
precipitation

Annual change in water storage, 2002–2016 (cm)

–2.5 –2 –1 0 1 2 2.5

Figure 1.9 Global map of annual water storage change for the period of 2002–2016 in the form of surface, under-
ground, and ice and snow data collected by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission.
(Courtesy of NASA’s earth observatory: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images)

however, downscaling techniques are alternatives for
obtaining data with finer resolution (Zaitchik et al., 2008).
Recent studies are more focused on developing the Mass
Concentration blocks (mascons) approach that fits inter-
satellite ranging observations from GRACE, unlike the
previously applied standard spherical harmonic approach
(Watkins et al., 2015). The mascons approach smoothes
the process of implementing geophysical constraints that
help filter out the noise. Studies by University of Texas
Center for Space Research (Save et al., 2012), Goddard
Space Flight Center (GSFC; Luthcke et al., 2013), and
JPL (Watkins et al., 2015) have shown that mascons can
present higher spatial resolution with lower uncertainties.
Several studies evaluated the applicability of GRACE‐
TWS changes for analyzing and monitoring drought
(Famiglietti et al., 2011; Scanlon et al., 2012; Thomas
et al., 2017). An example is the Standardized Groundwater
Index (SGI), a quantile‐based index with values bounded
between 0 and 1 and values above and below 0.5 indicate
wet and dry conditions, respectively (Bloomfield &
Marchant, 2013). A threshold of 0.2 identifies the onset
of drought and a sustained drought of greater severity
would be indicated by SGI values below that threshold.
Li and Rodell (2015) introduced the Groundwater
Drought Index (GWI), which is able to detect and mon-
itor groundwater deficits by means of outputs from a
Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM). The GRACE
Groundwater Drought Index (GGDI) was developed to
evaluate California’s Central Valley groundwater drought
using GRACE‐TWS observations (Thomas et al., 2017).
It was found that GGDI is highly correlated to GWI,
which uses measurements of groundwater level in situ as
an input, suggesting that the groundwater storage anom-
alies obtained from GRACE can be used as valid input
for groundwater drought indices.
Nonetheless, a major limitation of GRACE when it
comes to its application for drought monitoring is its
monthly observations of TWS change. In addition, the
derived GRACE‐TWS changes are limited to 17 years,
which is insufficient for capturing climatological charac-
teristics and drought analysis. Therefore, attempts have
been made to reconstruct a longer time series of ground-
water data utilizing both measurements in situ and
statistical approaches such as artificial neural networks
(Mohanty et al., 2015). To obtain higher spatial resolu-
tion data, GRACE observations can be assimilated into
land surface models such as the CLSM (Koster
et al., 2000) and the GRACE data assimilation system
(GRACE‐DAS; Zaitchik et al., 2008).
1.3. MULTI‐INDICATOR DROUGHT MODELING
Although single drought indices can isolate a variable
from a hydrological process and exploit its key
characteristic (e.g., SPI enables detection of onset of
drought), multiple and composite indices offer an oppor-
tunity to systematically capture critical hydrological
­variables in development of drought (Vicente‐Serrano
et al., 2010). Indices such as the PDSI, and the Surface
Water Supply Index (SWSI; Shafer & Dezman, 1982)
16 GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD

were proposed to address drought in a context that incor-
porates meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural
drought categories. Several bivariate indices have also
been proposed that statistically describe the joint behavior
of different categories of drought by means of Copula
theory (e.g. Shojaeezadeh et al., 2018, 2019), such as the
Joint Drought Index (JDI; Kao & Govindaraju, 2010)
and Standardized Precipitation–Streamflow Index
(SPSI; Modaresi Rad et al., 2017) that combine meteoro-
logical and hydrological droughts, or the Multivariate
Standardized Drought Index (MSDI; Hao &
AghaKouchak, 2013; Figure 1.10) that combines meteo-
rological and agricultural droughts. The MSDI requires
precipitation and soil moisture data and is used by the
Global Integrated Drought Monitoring and Prediction
System (GIDMaPS) for monitoring agro‐meteorological
drought (Hao et al., 2014). The Process‐based
Accumulated Drought Index (PADI) was proposed in a
multisensor integrated methodology called Evolution
Process‐based Multi‐sensor Collaboration (EPMC) to
quantify impacts of drought on crop production (Zhang
et al., 2017). The advantage of the EPMC framework is
that it is based on both crop phenology and drought
development. The EPMC framework obtains moisture
data from Global Land Data Assimilation System
version 2 (GLDAS‐2.0), vegetation condition data from
the AVHRR, and precipitation data from the Global
Precipitation Climatology Center (GPCC). The PADI
calculations can be provided on a weekly basis and it pro-
vides a new approach to monitor and assess agricultural
drought.
Recent studies emphasize the importance of consid-
ering compounding effects of different extremes on the
development of megahazards (Ashraf et al., 2018;
Mazdiyasni & AghaKouchak, 2015; Moftakhari
et al., 2017). Sadegh et al. (2018) proposed a framework
for assessment of multiple designed scenarios of
compound extreme events where weighted average of
these possible events was used to derive threshold quan-
tiles. The development of multi‐index drought moni-
toring indices has also enhanced the prediction of
drought onset, development, and termination. The
Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI; Brown
et al., 2008; Tadesse et al., 2005) uses the satellite‐based
observations of vegetation conditions, climate‐based
drought indices, and other biophysical information to
represent drought effects on vegetation health. Note that
vegetation stress derived from the Normalized Difference
Vegetation Index (NDVI; Rouse et al., 1974) could be
associated with other natural causes such as flooding,

Monitoring

D4 D3 D2 D1 D0 W0 W1 W2 W3 W4

Figure 1.10 Near real‐time drought monitoring and prediction system by the Global Integrated Drought
Monitoring and Prediction System (GIDMaPS) using the Multivariate Standardized Drought Index (MSDI) for
February 2016 based on the Modern‐Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) data set.
D0 indicates abnormally dry; D1 moderate drought; D2 severe drought; D3 extreme drought; D4 exceptional
drought; and the same applies to the wetness (W) scale.

pest infestation, fire, etc. The United States Drought
Monitor (USDM; Svoboda et al., 2002) uses measure-
ments in situ, satellite‐based indices such as the Vegetation
Health Index (VHI), ESI, VegDRI and, GRACE TWS
along with expert opinion to produce maps of drought
conditions on a weekly basis. The recently developed
Composite Drought Index (CDI) can represent unique
characteristics of drought in three categories: meteorolog-
ical, hydrological, and agricultural (Waseem et al., 2015).
The CDI utilizes measurements of precipitation and
streamflow made in situ, along with land surface temper-
ature and a NDVI derived from MODIS.
Other examples of composite drought indices based on
retrieved satellite observations include SDCI (Rhee
et al., 2010) and MIDI (Zhang & Jia, 2013). The SDCI
merges TRMM‐based precipitation data with land sur-
face temperature (LST) and NVDI, and was proposed for
agricultural drought monitoring purposes. In this
approach, the value of each component is scaled between
0 and 1 and different weights are assigned to each of the
components (SDCI = αLST + 𝛽TRMM + 𝛾NDVI,
α + 𝛽 + 𝛾 = 1). Rhee et al. (2010) demonstrated that over
both arid and humid/subhumid regions, SDCI is a more
accurate tool compared to NDVI and VHI (Kogan, 1995)
for agricultural drought monitoring. Likewise, the MIDI
was proposed for monitoring short‐term meteorological
droughts (Zhang & Jia, 2013). The MIDI combines
TRMM‐based precipitation data (in the form of the
Precipitation Condition Index; PCI) with LST (in the
form of the Temperature Condition Index; TCI) and soil
moisture (in the form of the Soil Moisture Condition
Index; SMCI) obtained from AMSR‐E (MIDI = αPCI
+ 𝛽SMCI + (1 − α − 𝛽)TCI). These composite drought
indices unlike the Copula‐based methods are suitable
for combining drought indicators that are not highly
­correlated with each other.
1.4. DROUGHT AND HEATWAVES FEEDBACKS
The occurrence of flash droughts that are caused by
heatwaves, unlike those due to the lack of precipitation,
often cannot be monitored properly, and hence early
warning systems fail to prevent losses. High temperatures
associated with heatwaves reduce soil moisture and
increase ET, thereby having a direct impact on the agri-
cultural sector (Mo & Lettenmaier, 2015). The Risk
Management Agency of the United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA; https://www.rma.usda.gov/data/
sob.html) reports that livestock stress due to withering of
crops sustains economic losses that are billions of dollars.
Heatwaves have also contributed to a decrease in
efficiency of power plants (Zamuda et al., 2013), an
increase in air pollution and therefore proliferating
mortality, respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity
REMOTE SENSING OF DROUGHT 17
(Poumadere et al., 2005), an increase in intensity, dura-
tion, and size of wildfires that takes a toll on the economy
in several ways (Zamuda et al., 2013). A sequence of mul-
tiple extreme climate events can cause catastrophic disas-
ters and are recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) as compound events (Leonard
et al., 2014). Chiang et al. (2018), utilizing historical
observations from Climate Research Unit (CRU),
detected that in southern and northeastern United States,
warming rates associated with droughts have been rising
faster than average climate. They found, however, that the
accelerated warming associated with droughts does not
hold for arid or semiarid regions. The United Nations
Environment Program reported that the European heat-
wave in 2003 was the world’s most costly weather disaster
(Mazdiyasni & AghaKouchak, 2015). During 2003, mul-
tiple European countries faced an unprecedented heat-
wave that increased ozone concentrations and imposed
substantial health‐related issues on the population
(Poumadere et al., 2005).
In a recent study by Miralles et al. (2014), persistent
atmospheric pressure patterns were found to have caused
land–atmosphere feedbacks leading to extreme tempera-
tures and megaheatwaves in the summers of both 2003 in
France and 2010 in Russia (Figure 1.11). The process can
be described in two parts: (a) during daytime where the
heat is provided by a large‐scale horizontal advection that
warms both the desiccated land surface and atmospheric
boundary layer, and (b) during nighttime when the heat
produced during the day is entrapped in the atmospheric
layer high above waiting to reenter the atmospheric
boundary layer following the next diurnal cycle. Given
that the process could continue for several consecutive
days, Miralles et al. (2014) suggested that this combination
of multiday memory of land surface and atmospheric
boundary layer could explain the occurrence of mega-
heatwaves. Hirschi et al. (2011) established a relationship
between soil moisture deficit and hot summer extremes in
southern Europe using quantile regression and found a
higher correlation for the high end of the distribution of
temperature extremes. The relationship between soil
moisture deficit and hot summer extremes, therefore, can
be used as an early warning tool for extreme heatwaves
and associated drought. As soil moisture availability is
lowered, sensible heat flux causes atmospheric heating
while evaporative cooling is reduced. This affects the
energy balance and can be used as an early warning for
monitoring hot extremes and flash droughts caused by
heatwaves. In a study by Mueller and Seneviratne (2012),
it was found that hot extremes are often followed by a
surface moisture deficit globally. Their results from quan-
tile regressions indicated that both low and high number
of hot days (NHD; number of days that the maximum
temperature exceeds the 90th percentile) per month occur
18 GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD
(a)
Land surface temperature anomaly (°C)
20–27 July 2010
–12 0 12
Figure 1.11 Temperature anomalies by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s
Terra satellite. (a) Compound heatwave and drought hazards in Russia during summer of 2010. (b) The unprece-
dented heatwave in Australia between 7 and 14 February 2017. (Courtesy of NASA’s earth observatory: https://
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images)
following a dry condition whereas, wet conditions occur
prior to low NHD.
Heatwaves, especially in Europe, are usually caused by
two feedback mechanisms of high sensible heat emissions
and upper‐air anticyclonic circulations, with the latter
having more drastic effects (Cassou et al., 2005). Studies
over Europe suggest that it is possible to have hot
summers succeeding a normal or even wet winter and
spring conditions, if the land surfaces are desiccated. The
desiccated land surface in the Mediterranean region
forms a dry air that diminishes clouds and reduces
convection and the dry air is transported to the north by
a southerly wind, where it dramatically increases temper-
ature and ultimately evapotranspiration demand of vege-
tation. Rossby wave trains arising from sea surface
temperature anomalies in the tropical Atlantic are an
example of anticyclonic circulations that result in heat-
waves and droughts (Cassou et al., 2005). Ferranti and
Viterbo (2006) argued that the formation of desiccated
soil reduces energy evaporated as latent heat while
increasing sensible heat, which in turn enhances the ratio
of sensible over latent heat fluxes. Accordingly, the dry
soil increases the thickness of the lower layer of the tro-
posphere that favors the development of anticyclonic
circulation anomalies. Warmer sea surface temperatures
in the Mediterranean Sea also contributes to development
of anticyclonic circulations; nevertheless, soil moisture
content at the beginning of summer is the major deter-
mining factor for development of concurrent summer
heatwaves and flash droughts (Feudale & Shukla, 2007;
Zampieri et al., 2009). The concurrence of heatwaves and
(b)
Peak land surface temperature (°C)
7–14 February 2017
≤15 30 45 ≥60
droughts has yet to be fully explored and further global
scale studies are required for developing appropriate
strategies to mitigate drought‐related losses.
1.5. REMAINING CHALLENGES
AND OPPORTUNITIES
The number of different satellite sensors observing our
planet is ever increasing and as a result, better resolutions
and different physical variables can be obtained. Some of
these satellite missions appropriate for monitoring
drought related variables that recently have been launched
include ECOSTRESS, GPM, GOES R series, SMAP, Ice
Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat‐2), and
GRACE Follow‐On, and some are planned for launch
in the near future such as Surface Water and Ocean
Topography (SWOT), Landsat 9, Biomass, and
FLuorescence EXplorer (FLEX). Initial challenges asso-
ciated with the launch of new satellites, however, include
inconsistencies in observations due to sensor changes,
continuity of data, unforeseen uncertainties, data mainte-
nance, and community acceptability. Among them, data
continuity represents a great challenge both in terms of
cost and time. Since satellite missions are often expected
to have a life span of near a decade and an equal amount
of time is required for the design of a new satellite, prep-
arations must be made to ensure continuity of data
through follow‐up missions. This is particularly essential
for drought monitoring purposes, as over 30 years of data
are required for drought monitoring and this often sur-
passes the ideal operational lifetime (e.g., a decade) of

most satellites. Some of these follow‐up missions include
the series of Landsat missions, ESA’s Sentinels, NASA’s
Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and
GPM, GRACE Follow‐On, and GOES‐R. The process
of reconstructing the time series introduces another
source of uncertainty to drought modeling. To provide
an estimate of uncertainty associated with remote sens-
ing products, a number of different statistical techniques
can be used, including data assimilation (Massari
et al., 2015), triple collocation analysis (TCA; W. B.
Anderson et al., 2012), generalized triple collocation
analysis (GCA; Dong & Crow, 2017), and spectrum anal-
ysis (Kumar et al., 2018). W. B. Anderson et al. (2012)
used TCA to estimate the total observation error vari-
ance of the combined three different soil moisture
­products: thermal remote sensing by atmosphere‐land
exchange inverse (ALEXI), microwave AMSR‐E, and
simulations from physically based models. The TCA was
validated for the 2010–2011 Horn of Africa drought and
showed promising results.
When it comes to data processing and analysis of
satellite imageries, different algorithms can help in distin-
guishing pixels and identifying objects, such as deep
learning methods. There are some atmospheric features,
however, that act as a barrier for certain optical and
infrared satellite instruments and result in data inconsis-
tencies. Optical‐based vegetation indicators are error
prone when the area studied has atmospheric effects,
cloud cover, aerosols, and water vapor (Andela
et al., 2013). Moreover, optical satellite observation only
reflects information from the top of the canopy. These
problems can be resolved using microwave sensors that
provide the opportunity to monitor carbon cycling dur-
ing drought episodes over the long term. A unique
approach would be to combine the vegetation optical
depth (VOD; Owe et al., 2001) with optical based methods
(i.e., NDVI) for a complementary analysis that considers
both canopy top greenness and biomass. Combination of
microwave, optical, and lidar observations provides an
opportunity to monitor ecosystem response to drought
that often continues even after drought recovery (C. D.
Allen et al., 2010). Recent studies indicate that some var-
iables such as snow and relative humidity can be integrated
into drought monitoring models for improving estima-
tions of drought recovery and detection of its onset,
respectively (AghaKouchak et al., 2014; Rott et al., 2010).
Another challenging issue with remote sensing obser-
vations is the process of preserving large historical
records, as it requires large and costly infrastructure and
help of professional to store these data. Climatic data
records can be merged together to produce longer records
that would be appropriate for assessment of drought and
monitoring (AghaKouchak & Nakhjiri, 2012). For
example, several attempts have been made to generate
REMOTE SENSING OF DROUGHT 19
NDVI from observations of multiple satellite missions
including AVHRR and MODIS (Beck et al., 2011; Pinzon
& Tucker, 2014; Tucker et al., 2005).
A change in satellite sensors, such as a follow‐up
mission, is introduction of a great deal of uncertainty in
modeling drought, and these uncertainties are often
unquantified (Mehran et al., 2014). Therefore, an ideal
way to tackle the problem is to provide uncertainty
bounds along with raw observations. This uncertainty
and the structural and parameter uncertainty resulting
from model‐based simulations can be merged together to
help decision making in operational applications (Sadegh,
Ragno, et al., 2017). Such models and indicators are
now being used more frequently and they quantify the
uncertainty associated with satellite observations
(AghaKouchak & Mehran, 2013; Entekhabi et al., 2010;
Gebremichael, 2010). Therefore, the more remote sensing
data are tailored for drought assessment, the more
decision makers and drought experts can be engaged with
remote sensing data.
1.6. CONCLUSION
Remote sensing offers a new way to monitor drought
and develop drought models that would consider mul-
tiple variables at a global scale. Limitations of measure-
ments in situ, such as nonuniformity and lack of
measurement, are now resolved by multisensor remote
sensing frameworks. Moreover, the introduction of multi‐
index and composite drought monitoring has enhanced
drought detection capabilities. This further extends
drought analysis by allowing scientists to investigate the
extent of effects of drought on other natural processes
after the period of drought recovery. This chapter high-
lights different variables that contribute to formation of
drought and discusses numerous satellite products that
can offer valuable data as input for different categories of
drought models. The critical role that precipitation as
snow plays in the occurrence of drought is discussed,
including that its consideration into drought modeling
has been hindered due to the lag between its occurrence
and changes in surface water. Recently, several composite
drought‐monitoring frameworks have been proposed to
address this issue and have shown promising results. It is
argued that recent shifts in rainfall patterns and increases
in temperature happen in parallel with increasing severity
and frequency of concurrent heatwaves and droughts.
Anthropogenic hydrological change has altered the recur-
rence of extremes and this hinders monitoring systems,
which are developed based on stationary assumptions of
natural variables. Therefore, more uncertainty is intro-
duced into modeling drought‐monitoring systems if the
stationarity assumption is to be retained. In addition,
there is a growing need to assimilate satellite‐retrieved
20 GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD
information into land surface, hydrological, and climate
models. In order to do so, the uncertainty associated with
satellite observations should be quantified in such a way
that it can be used in modeling. Moreover, large database
records should be designed to be accessible to both the
scientific and the operational communities.
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 2
Remote Sensing of Evapotranspiration for Global
Drought Monitoring
Xiwu Zhan1, Li Fang1,2, Jifu Yin1,2, Mitchell Schull1,2, Jicheng Liu1,2, Christopher Hain3,
Martha Anderson4, William Kustas4, and Satya Kalluri5

ABSTRACT

Evapotranspiration (ET) is one of the main components of the hydrological or water cycle. The latent heat
from evapotranspiration is also one of the most important components of the energy cycle because it is the
­largest energy source for the atmosphere and thus is significant for weather and climate formation. Local scale
evapotranspiration is mostly observed with ground instruments such as a lysimeter, Bowen ratio, or eddy covari-
ance tower. Regional scale evapotranspiration is estimated from surface water balance or atmospheric water
balance. Remote sensing approaches have been developed to retrieve regional or global scale evapotranspiration
in recent decades. As the lack or reduction of evapotranspiration indicates drought, remote sensing of evapo-
transpiration has been applied to monitoring regional or global droughts in recent years. In this chapter we
briefly review ET remote sensing studies, starting with a historical sketch before introducing the Geostationary
Operational Environmental Satellites’ (GOES) ET and Drought (GET‐D) product system that is operational
at the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). The GET‐D system
­implements the Atmosphere–Land Exchange Inversion (ALEXI) model for estimating regional daily ET from
observations of the NESDIS Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites. The Evaporative Stress Index
(ESI) based on ALEXI ET is used for monitoring drought currently for North America. An approach to m ­ erging
the ESI data into microwave soil moisture observations and land‐surface model soil‐moisture simulations for
a blended drought index is presented. The feasibility of using the ALEXI ET estimates from global satellite
observations for drought monitoring is discussed.

2.1. INTRODUCTION soil surface evaporation, the evaporation of water inter-

Evapotranspiration (ET) is the sum of water evaporated
from Earth’s surface, from both land and ocean, and
water transpired from vegetation. Thus, ET is commonly
referred to as evaporation from the land surface, including
cepted by vegetation canopy, and the transpiration from
vegetation stomata.
The latent heat needed for the evapotranspiration
processes and transferred to the atmosphere is one of
the most important components of the global or regional
energy cycle. Partitioning of the available energy of a

1
NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and 3
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama,
Research, College Park, Maryland, USA USA
2
UMD‐CISESS Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth 4
Agricultural Research Service, United States Department
System Studies, College Park, Maryland, USA of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland, USA
5
Raytheon, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, USA

Global Drought and Flood: Observation, Modeling, and Prediction, Geophysical Monograph 265, First Edition.
Edited by Huan Wu, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, Qiuhong Tang, and Philip J. Ward.
© 2021 American Geophysical Union. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI 10.1002/9781119427339.ch2
29
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creeds
Creek
Creeks
creeps
Creighton
Creole
Creoles
crept
Crescent
Crespo
crest
crests
Cretan
Cretans
Crete
Creusot
crevices
crew
crews
Cridler
cried
cries
crime
Crimean
crimeless
crimes
criminal
criminally
criminals
cripple
crippled
cripples
crippling
crises
crisis
CRISPI
Cristobal
Critic
critical
critically
criticise
criticised
criticises
criticising
criticism
criticisms
criticized
critics
Croatia
Croatian
Croatians
crocketed
Croix
Croker
Crokerism
Crombet
Cromer
Cromwell
CRONJE
Crookes
crop
crops
crore
crores
Crosby
CROSS
crossed
crosses
crossing
crossings
Crossley
Crossmon
crowd
crowded
crowding
crowds
Crowell
Crown
crowned
crowning
Crowns
Crozier
crucial
crude
crudeness
crudest
cruel
cruelly
cruelties
cruelty
Cruikshank
Cruise
cruiser
cruisers
crumbles
crumbling
crusade
crusaders
crush
crushed
crushing
Cruz
cry
crying
crystal
crystallise
crystallized
crystallizes
Crystallography
Cuba
Cuban
Cubans
cubic
cubical
cuerda
Cuestas
CUGNONI
Cugo
cul
Culebra
Culex
culinary
cullender
Culling
Cullom
culminated
culminating
culmination
culpability
culpabilité
culpable
culprits
cult
cultivable
cultivate
cultivated
cultivating
cultivation
cultivator
cultivators
cults