Monitoring and Assessment Drought Dynamics in High and Middle Moulouya, Morroco Using Remote Sensing and Meteorological-Based Indices

Agricultural drought has become a major global problem due to its severe impact on rain-fed crop yield and indirect impact on employment and per capita income. Evaluating agricultural drought risk effectively is critical to properly manage current water resources and ensure food security. The current study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of GIS and remote sensing tools for monitoring the spatial and temporal extent of agricultural drought by applying different drought indices for the lands at the high and middle Moulouya basin. The annual weather data from 1978 to 2017 was used to analyze the extent of meteorological drought using a standardized precipitation index (SPI) across the basin. Remote sensing images in 1984, 1995, and 2022 from Landsat 4–5 Thema Tique Mapper (TM) and Landsat 9 operational land image (OLI) were utilized to monitor agricultural drought using the NDVI-based vegetation condition index (VCI). The extreme drought in upper Moulouya occurred during 1983/1984 with an average SPI value of − 1.97. The largest areal extent of agricultural drought conditions was recorded in 2022 compared to 1984 and 1995. Results show that VCI tracks agricultural droughts more effectively than the SPI indices employed in this study. This identification will help to build an effective planning and drought management tool for the agriculture sector over time.