Presentation | H23K: Advances in Drought Monitoring and Risk Management: Integrating Remote Sensing, Stochastic Hydrology, Modeling, and Surveys II Poster
Poster
[ONLINE] H23K-VR8813: Flash Drought Onset Dynamics Across India: Insights into the PET Approach Dilemma
Author(s): Ashish Pathania, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi (First Author, Presenting Author) Vivek Gupta, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi
Flash droughts develop rapidly and can severely impact India’s rainfed agriculture. We studied flash droughts across India from 1979–2020 using a 5‑day drought index (SPEI‑5D) and compared two ways of estimating potential evapotranspiration (PET), i.e., Hargreaves and Penman-Monteith. Their performance was evaluated against NASA SMAP soil moisture data (2016–2020) to see which better identified flash drought events based on SPEI‑5D. Additionaly, India was divided into homogeneous flash drought zones, and regional patterns of flash drought duration, intensity, and frequency were examined.
