Brazilian experience on the development of drought monitoring and impact assessment systems
Brazil is not an exception to the increasing frequency and intensity of droughts in several countries. However, assessing the spatial and temporal identification of drought episodes is an extremely complex process. Drought indices are particularly useful for characterizing water deficit, as well as for monitoring the impact of climate variability on natural vegetation and crop robustness. Due to the different sources of information and methodologies that are used for drought indices, the monitoring of droughts from various indices may vary. It must be highlighted that any single index is enough for precisely depicting drought characteristics. Thus, the combination of different indicators that integrate various sources of information may help to better achieve consistent monitoring of drought risks and their characteristics.
Based on this concept, the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN) has developed drought indicators that combine a rainfall-based drought index and a remote sensing-based index. Through these drought indicators, the magnitude or intensity, speed of onset, duration, and area of extent of drought can be estimated. These drought characteristics are valuable for impact assessment, which plays an important role in drought risk management.
Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present the efforts developed by CEMADEN, especially related to (i) the progress already achieved by the drought hazard monitoring system in Brazil; (ii) the development of a drought impact assessment over the last six years in different regions of Brazil; (iii) and the challenges ahead in assessing drought risks and their impacts on the national level for disaster risk reduction.
This paper is a contribution to the 2019 edition of the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR 2019).
To cite this paper:
Cunha, Ana Paula M.d.A et al. Brazilian experience on the development of drought monitoring and impact assessment systems. Contributing Paper to GAR 2019