Drought Assessment in Kalaburgi District, North-eastern Dry Zone of Karnataka, India by Using Remote Sensing and Google Earth Engine

Drought is a significant natural disaster exacerbated by global warming, leading to severe environmental, economic and societal impacts. As one of the most complex phenomena, drought requires advanced methods for effective monitoring and assessment. Remote sensing indices have proven effective in analyzing drought's geographical and temporal distribution. In this study, the semi-arid nature of the North-Eastern Dry Zone of Karnataka, characterized by low rainfall and high temperature, was examined for its vulnerability to drought. The Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform was utilized, which provides cloud-based access to advanced computational resources for processing multi-temporal satellite data. This approach minimizes the need for extensive data downloads and complex software operations, enabling efficient drought monitoring. In this study, GEE was applied to create and execute customized scripts for drought assessment, thereby accelerating the procedure and minimizing the need for extensive data downloads and complex software operations. The study focused on the North Eastern Dry Zone of Karnataka, particularly Kalaburgi district, employing the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) derived from MODIS data. The analysis revealed severe drought conditions, particularly in 2001, with NDVI values as low as 0.07 at Afzalpur station and 0.06 at Chitapur station, indicating significant vegetation stress. The VCI analysis further supported these findings, with values as low as 0.05 at Afzalpur station and 0.03 at Chitapur station, highlighting the drought's intensity. This integrated approach provides a reliable evaluation of agricultural drought, essential for enhancing drought management and mitigation strategies in the region.