Agricultural Drought Monitoring in Kenya Using Evapotranspiration Derived from Remote Sensing and Reanalysis Data

Authors

Michael T. Marshall, University of California, Santa Barbara
Christopher Funk, U.S. Geological SurveyFollow
Joel Michaelsen, University of California, Santa BarbaraFollow

Date of this Version

2012

Citation

Published in Remote Sensing of Drought: Innovative Monitoring Approaches, edited by Brian D. Wardlow, Martha C. Anderson, & James P. Verdin (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, 2012).

Comments

U.S. Government Work

Abstract

More than half of the people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than US$ 1.25 per day, and nearly 30% do not receive sufficient nourishment to maintain daily health (UN, 2009a). These figures are expected to rise as a result of the recent global financial crisis that has led to an increase in food prices. Food for Peace (FFP), the program that administers more than 85% of U.S. international food aid, recently reported that the seven largest recipient countries of food aid worldwide are in sub-Saharan Africa (FFP, 2010). In Kenya, the fifth largest recipient of food aid from FFP and a country highly dependent on rainfed agriculture, below-average precipitation in 2009 led to a 20% reduction in maize production and a 100% increase in domestic maize prices (FEWS NET, 2009). Given these sorts of climatic shocks, it is imperative that mitigation strategies be developed for sub-Saharan Africa and other regions of the developing world to improve the international and national response to impending food crises. Crop monitoring is an important tool used by national agricultural offices and other stakeholders to inform food security analyses and agricultural drought mitigation. Remote sensing and surface reanalysis data facilitate efficient and cost-effective approaches to measuring determinants of agricultural drought. In this chapter, we explore how remotely sensed estimates of actual evapotranspiration (ETa) can be integrated with surface reanalysis data to augment agricultural drought monitoring systems.

Although water availability is important throughout every stage of crop development, from germination to harvest, crops are most sensitive to moisture deficits during the reproductive stages (Shanahan and Nielsen, 1987). A study that analyzed maize, for example, showed that a 1% decline in seasonal ETa led to an average loss of 1.5% in crop yield, whereas water stress in the same proportion concentrated during the reproductive phases led to a 2.6% decline in crop yield (Stegman, 1982). Agricultural drought can therefore be defined as inadequate soil water availability, particularly during the reproductive phase, caused by low precipitation, insufficient water-holding capacity in the root zone of the soil, and/or high atmospheric water demand (potential evapotranspiration, ETp), which results in a reduction in crop yield. Agricultural droughts differ in timescale and impact from shorter-term meteorological droughts, which are characterized by negative precipitation anomalies on the order of days to weeks, and the longer-term negative runoff and water storage anomalies that characterize hydrological drought (Dracup et al., 1980).