Evaluating the impacts of drought on crop production from satellite observations: A case study in Kansas

Despite growing agricultural production in the past decades, drought remains the leading factor of crop loss, threatening food security. Satellite observation has proved a practical and dynamic tool for drought monitoring. However, the drought impacts on agriculture at large scales still remain poorly examined, especially at a finer spatial and temporal resolution from remote sensing. This study investigates the impacts of drought on crop yield in Kansas wheat growing regions using MODIS data. The results show that drought has time-varying impacts during the growing season with significant impacts observed between Mid-April and Early-June. During this key alert period, we generally find high agricultural impacts with the most severe drought effects during the grain filling stage around Mid-May. This research provides a first step towards prototyping an agricultural drought monitoring system, which can alert crop analysts of agricultural drought vulnerable areas/periods and provide tools for assessing crop outlooks.