1. Evaluating the Performance of Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) In Various Vegetation Regions of the Ethiopian Highlands
- Author
-
Lemenkova, Polina and Laboratory of Image Synthesis and Analysis, Ecole Polytechnique de Bruxelles, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
- Subjects
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,[SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio] ,[SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes ,[INFO.INFO-DS]Computer Science [cs]/Data Structures and Algorithms [cs.DS] ,[SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences ,drought ,precipitation ,ACM: I.: Computing Methodologies/I.3: COMPUTER GRAPHICS/I.3.3: Picture/Image Generation ,010501 environmental sciences ,01 natural sciences ,ACM: I.: Computing Methodologies/I.3: COMPUTER GRAPHICS ,vegetation ,ACM: I.: Computing Methodologies/I.3: COMPUTER GRAPHICS/I.3.6: Methodology and Techniques ,ACM: I.: Computing Methodologies/I.6: SIMULATION AND MODELING/I.6.5: Model Development ,cartography ,[INFO]Computer Science [cs] ,ACM: I.: Computing Methodologies/I.3: COMPUTER GRAPHICS/I.3.4: Graphics Utilities ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,[SDV.EE]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology, environment ,2. Zero hunger ,PDSI ,ACM: I.: Computing Methodologies/I.4: IMAGE PROCESSING AND COMPUTER VISION ,temperature ,[INFO.INFO-CV]Computer Science [cs]/Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition [cs.CV] ,General Medicine ,15. Life on land ,[INFO.INFO-GR]Computer Science [cs]/Graphics [cs.GR] ,6. Clean water ,13. Climate action ,[SDE]Environmental Sciences ,soil moisture ,[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology - Abstract
This paper focuses on the environment of Ethiopia, a country highly sensitive to droughts severely affecting vegetation. Vegetation monitoring of Ethiopian Highlands requires visualization of environmental parameters to assess droughts negatively influencing agricultural sustainable management of crops. Therefore, this study presented mapping of several climate and environmental variables including Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). The data were visualized and interpreted alongside the topographic data to evaluate the environmental conditions for vegetation. The datasets included WorldClim and GEBCO and Digital Chart of the World (DCW). Research has threefold objectives: i) environmental mapping; ii) technical cartographic scripting; iii) data processing. Following variables were visualized on seven new maps: 1) topography; 2) soil moisture; 3) T °C minimum; 4) T °C maximum; 5) Wind speed; 6) Precipitation; 7) Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). New high-resolution thematic environmental maps are presented and the utility of GMT for mapping multi-source datasets is described. With varying degrees of soil moisture (mean value of 15.0), min T°C (−1.8°C to 24°C), max T°C (14.4°C to 40.2°C) and wind speed (0.1 to 6.1 m/s), the maps demonstrate the variability of the PDSI fields over the country area (from −11.7 to 2.3) induced by the complex sum of these variables and intensified by the topographic effects notable over the Ethiopian Highlands which can be used for vegetation analysis. The paper presents seven new maps and contributes to the environmental studies of Ethiopia.
- Published
- 2021