Geospatial Techniques for Drought Assessment in Semi-arid Region of Central India

Drought is a phase of below average rainfall in a given region, resulting shortages in water reserve. It adversely affects the soil moisture, surface runoff availability in rivers and recharge of ground water. Hence, put at risk to economic and environmental conditions and in supreme cases the human survival. In this chapter, we have provided methodology to assess and monitor metrological drought by using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) method. SPI is a tool to quantify the drought characteristics, widely used for its easiness. In total, 40 years of the data from the period 1981–2020 were used for drought assessment in the region. The obtained rainfall data is then computed by SPI method for drought assessment and monitoring. The range of SPI value, in which \(\ge 2\) shows an extreme wet condition of land, while \(\ge \left( { - 2} \right)\) is generally used for the extreme dry conditions. Lower the SPI value indicates higher the drought severity. The observation clearly shows that the region studied in this work i.e. Satna periodically suffering by the drought. The result conveys that out of 40 years grid1, grid4, grid 5, and grid7 suffers extreme drought condition. Grid 9 and Grid 3 tolerate severe condition of drought. On the other hand, Grid 2, 6 and 8 suffered by moderate drought conditions. Mild drought occurs in Grid 10 and Grid 11.