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Capability of Existing Drought Indices in Reflecting Agricultural Drought in China
Author(s) -
Zhao Zhe,
Wang Kaicun
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: biogeosciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8961
pISSN - 2169-8953
DOI - 10.1029/2020jg006064
Subject(s) - environmental science , agriculture , vegetation (pathology) , crop , water content , crop yield , yield (engineering) , china , agronomy , hydrology (agriculture) , geography , geology , biology , medicine , geotechnical engineering , archaeology , pathology , materials science , metallurgy
A variety of drought indices have been constructed to monitor agricultural drought using ground‐based observations and satellite data. The drought indices focus on diverse aspects of agricultural drought and may have diverse applicability in different regions. We calculated seven popular drought indices and evaluated their performances on monitoring agricultural drought in the main agricultural regions of China (i.e., Northeast China, the North China Plain, the middle‐and‐lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the Sichuan Basin). The independent assessment data used here included three aspects: soil moisture, vegetation photosynthesis (i.e., sun‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence, SIF), and crop yield. Results show that drought indices with one‐month time scale are more sensitive to topsoil moisture than drought indices with longer time scales. Drought indices based on regular meteorological data (DI met ) and synthesized drought indices (DI syn ) show better performances on capturing drought impacts on the SIF than other drought indices. DI syn is more appropriate for predicting drought impact on crop yield than other drought indices. In addition, drought impact on vegetation photosynthesis and crop yield is lessened in humid or irrigated regions. Our study sheds light on agricultural drought researches in the future.