Publications

Orimoloye, IR; Olusola, AO; Ololade, O; Adelabu, S (2021). A persistent fact: reflections on drought severity evaluation over Nigerian Sahel using MOD13Q1. ARABIAN JOURNAL OF GEOSCIENCES, 14(19), 1997.

Abstract
Drought severity and its associated impacts remain persistent in the water-stressed regions of the world including the Sahel of Africa. Across the Sahel, there exist limited ground stations monitoring weather observations. This limitation has created an uphill task in trying to understand the role of climate in drought conditions across the entire Sahel of Africa; hence, the use of Earth observation satellite data for environmental events monitoring such as droughts. To determine the drought status of the Nigerian Sahel in a cost-efficient way, this study used Earth observation (EO) data (MODIS) and CORDEX precipitation flux. For accurate outcomes, the proposed algorithm by Kogan was explored in the study using R programming, which offers some appropriate characteristics for filtering cloud and other disturbances. The processing yields reliable drought indicators over the Sahel for various aggregate years and state zones. Drought severity index evaluated for the distinct Sahel region of Nigeria reflects how severe to extreme droughts characterised the period of 2001 to 2019 during late dry seasons, while the region observed mild droughts, such as years 2001 and 2003-2018 where the region observed no to moderate drought events during the wet seasons. As established in this study, the Sahel experiences severe droughts with a significantly higher water deficiency than elsewhere, especially during the late dry seasons.

DOI:
10.1007/s12517-021-08369-5

ISSN:
1866-7511