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Remote Sensing of Drought: Innovative Monitoring Approaches presents emerging remote sensing-based tools and techniques that can be applied to operational drought monitoring and early warning around the world. The first book to focus on remote sensing and drought monitoring, it brings together a wealth of information that has been scattered throughout the literature and across many disciplines. Featuring contributions by leading scientists, it assembles a cross-section of globally applicable techniques that are currently operational or have potential to be operational in the near future. The book explores a range of applications for monitoring four critical components of the hydrological cycle related to drought: vegetation health, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and groundwater, and precipitation. These applications use remotely sensed optical, thermal, microwave, radar, and gravity data from instruments such as AMSR-E, GOES, GRACE, MERIS, MODIS, and Landsat and implement several advanced modeling and data assimilation techniques. Examples show how to integrate this information into routine drought products. The book also examines the role of satellite remote sensing within traditional drought monitoring, as well as current challenges and future prospects. Improving drought monitoring is becoming increasingly important in addressing a wide range of societal issues, from food security and water scarcity to human health, ecosystem services, and energy production. This unique book surveys innovative remote sensing approaches to provide you with new perspectives on large-area drought monitoring and early warning.
Recognizing drought as a characteristic feature of the North American climate, the contributors to this volume seek to organize available evidence of both prehistoric and modern drought events and to provide information on the severity of droughts, especially those which have occurred since weather records have been kept. The impacts of modern-era droughts on production and the potential impact of future droughts on the productivity of North American agriculture are examined. The authors explore the effeats of past droughts on the social, cultural, and political life of the population; the possible effects of drought on today's energy- and techno logy-intensive society; and the ramifications of drought for the national economy. The social and political strategies that local, state, and federal governments may use to meliorate the effects of drought are also considered, as are some possible technological defenses against drought—weather modification, expanded irrigation, new techniques of water harvesting and storage, and new agronomic adaptations. Finally, the critical question of whether future droughts can be forecast is examined.
Recent advances in the modeling and remote sensing of droughts and floods Droughts and floods are causing increasing damage worldwide, often with devastating short- and long-term impacts on human society. Forecasting when they will occur, monitoring them as they develop, and learning from the past to improve disaster management is vital. Global Drought and Flood: Observation, Modeling, and Prediction presents recent advances in the modeling and remote sensing of droughts and floods. It also describes the techniques and products currently available and how they are being used in practice. Volume highlights include: Remote sensing approaches for mapping droughts and floods Physical and statistical models for monitoring and forecasting hydrologic hazards Features of various drought and flood systems and products Use by governments, humanitarian, and development stakeholders in recent disaster cases Improving the collaboration between hazard information provision and end users The American Geophysical Union promotes discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. Its publications disseminate scientific knowledge and provide resources for researchers, students, and professionals.
Global Groundwater: Source, Scarcity, Sustainability, Security, and Solutions presents a compilation of compelling insights into groundwater scenarios within all groundwater-stressed regions across the world. Thematic sub-sections include groundwater studies on sources, scarcity, sustainability, security, and solutions. The chapters in these sub-sections provide unique knowledge on groundwater for scientists, planners, and policymakers, and are written by leading global experts and researchers. Global Groundwater: Source, Scarcity, Sustainability, Security, and Solutions provides a unique, unparalleled opportunity to integrate the knowledge on groundwater, ranging from availability to pollution, nation-level groundwater management to transboundary aquifer governance, and global-scale review to local-scale case-studies. Provides interdisciplinary content that bridges the knowledge from groundwater sources to solutions and sustainability, from science to policy, from technology to clean water and food Includes global and regional reviews and case studies, building a bridge between broad reviews of groundwater-related issues by domain experts as well as detailed case studies by researchers Identifies pathways for transforming knowledge to policy and governance of groundwater security and sustainability

Drought

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Subcommittee on Disaster Prevention and Prediction

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 46


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Drought is a natural hazard with potentially significant societal, economic, and environmental consequences. Public policy issues related to drought range from how to identify and measure drought to how best to prepare for, respond to, and mitigate drought impacts, and who should bear such costs. This report provides information relevant to drought policy discussions by describing the physical causes of drought, drought history in the United States, examples of regional drought conditions, and policy challenges related to drought. What is drought? Drought is commonly defined as a lack of precipitation over an extended period of time, usually a season or more, relative to some long-term average condition. While the technology and science to predict droughts have improved, regional predictions remain limited to a few months in advance. History suggests that severe and extended droughts are inevitable and part of natural climate cycles. What causes drought? The physical conditions causing drought in the United States are increasingly understood to be linked to sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Studies indicate that cooler-than-average SSTs have been connected to the severe western drought in the first decade of the 21st century, severe droughts of the late 19th century, and precolonial North American “megadroughts.” The 2011 severe drought in Texas is thought to be linked to La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean. What is the future of drought in the United States? The prospect of extended droughts and more arid baseline conditions in parts of the United States could suggest new challenges to federal water projects, which were constructed largely on the basis of 20th century climate conditions. Some studies suggest that the American West may be transitioning to a more arid climate, possibly resulting from the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, raising concerns that the region may become more prone to extreme drought it was in the 20th century. Some models of future climate conditions also predict greater fluctuations in wet and dry years. California's 2007-2009 drought exacerbated ongoing tensions among competing water uses. While drought is most common in California and the Southwest, drought also can exacerbate water tensions in other regions. For example, the 2007-2008 drought in the Southeast heightened a long-standing dispute in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River (ACF) basin. Both California and the ACF are again experiencing drought conditions, as are the Rio Grande and Upper Colorado River basins. What are some drought policy challenges? Although the impacts of drought can be significant nationally as well as regionally, comprehensive national drought policy does not exist. Developing such a policy would represent a significant challenge because of split federal and non-federal responsibilities, the existing patchwork of federal drought programs, and differences in regional conditions and risks. While a comprehensive national policy has not been enacted, Congress has considered and acted upon some of the recommendations issued by the National Drought Policy Commission in 2000. In coming years, Congress may review how federal agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation respond to droughts. Congress may also assess other federal programs or choose to reassess the National Drought Policy Commission's recommendations.
The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) presents information on drought. NOAA highlights the U.S. drought monitor, threats of extreme weather conditions, a drought assessment, U.S. soil moisture monitoring, crop moisture index, and drought monitoring.
Agricultural droughts affect whole societies, leading to higher food costs, threatened economies, and even famine. In order to mitigate such effects, researchers must first be able to monitor them, and then predict them; however no book currently focuses on accurate monitoring or prediction of these devastating kinds of droughts. To fill this void, the editors of Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought have assembled a team of expert contributors from all continents to make a global study, describing biometeorological models and monitoring methods for agricultural droughts. These models and methods note the relationships between precipitation, soil moisture, and crop yields, using data gathered from conventional and remote sensing techniques. The coverage of the book includes probabilistic models and techniques used in America, Europe and the former USSR, Africa, Asia, and Australia, and it concludes with coverage of climate change and resultant shifts in agricultural productivity, drought early warning systems, and famine mitigation. This will be an essential collection for those who must advise governments or international organizations on the current scope, likelihood, and impact of agricultural droughts. Sponsored by the World Meterological Organization