HR: 08:30h
AN: G21D-03    [Abstracts]
TI: A max-to-min technique for making projections of NDVI change in semi-arid Africa for food security early warning
AU: * Brown, M E
EM: molly.brown@gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 614.4, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Funk, C C
EM: chris@geog.ucsb.edu
AF: Climate Hazards Group, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060 United States
AB: Climatic hazards such as droughts and floods often result in a decline in food production in economically vulnerable pre-industrial economies such as those in Africa. Early warning systems (EWS) have been developed to identify slow onset disasters such famine and epidemic disease that may result from hazardous environmental conditions. These conditions often precede food crises by many months, thus effective monitoring via satellite and in situ observations can allow for successful mitigation activities. Accurate forecasts of NDVI could increase monitoring lead times and allow for effective institutional planning of intervention, making early warning earlier. This paper presents a simple empirical max-to-min model for making 1 to 4 month NDVI projections. These statistical projections are based on parameterized satellite rainfall estimates (RFE) and relative humidity demand (RHD). A heuristic example in central Zimbabwe introduces the RFE growth and RHD loss terms. A quasi-global, one month ahead, 1 degree study then demonstrates reasonable accuracies in many semi-arid regions. In Africa, a 0.1 degree cross-validated skill assessment quantifies the technique's applicability at 1 to 4 month forecast intervals. These results suggest that useful projections can be made over many semi-arid, food insecure regions of Africa, with plausible extensions to drought prone areas of Asia, Australia and South America.
UR: http://www.fews.net
DE: 0402 Agricultural systems
DE: 0414 Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling (0412, 0793, 1615, 4805, 4912)
DE: 0468 Natural hazards
DE: 9305 Africa
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005