Global Drought Monitoring Initiative with Satellite Data

Drought, one of the severe natural hazards, occurs frequently and widely in the world. Attentions have been drawn to the fi eld of drought monitoring. It has never been well integrated with global drought information system based on the meteorological data, although the global drought monitoring with satellite data has made great progress in the past. Since 2007, the GEO has started to advocate and implement a global drought monitoring and early warning information system in order to devolop the global observing capacity of remote sensing. However, the following fi nance crisis in the west world adversely affected the implementation of this system. In 2011, the agricultural ministers of G20 noticed and recognized the Global Agricultural Monitoring Initiative of GEO, which has provided a new opportunity of promoting the implementation of a global drought monitoring and early warning information system. MODIS data have been successfully used in the US to monitor global crop growth and the loss distribution of crop production due to drought. In China, Fengyun Satellite has a global observing capacity for the global drought monitoring and the relevant support should be there to make this system real. International community should jointly promote the implementation of a global drought monitoring and early warning information system with a remote sensing component in order to provide the decision makers with the drought information and cope with the forthcoming drought.