Drought monitoring in Hubei province based on HJ-1 CCD data and real-time precipitation

Droughts caused great economic and social losses in the world. The purpose of drought monitoring is to analyze the origin, evolution and hazard of drought and determine possible drought losses using qualitative and quantitative method. Real-time precipitation data and HJ-1 CCD data offer a good way to evaluate the severity, duration, and extent of drought because drought is caused by lack of precipitation in more general terms. The proposed technology provides the following functionalities: (i) accumulation of real-time precipitation for a long time (ii) assessment of water supply by reservoirs (iii) determination drought intensity. The methodology is applied to monitoring drought losses in Hubei province as an example.