Operational Drought Risk Index Mapping for Disaster Risk Reduction in Central Dry Zone of Myanmar

Being a disaster prone country, Myanmar has threatened by many types of natural hazards including a slow on-set type disaster called drought. The most vulnerable area to drought in the country is the central dry zone compared to the other area of the country. Because of the effects of global warming and climate change impacts, the occurrences of drought events are getting increased. The historical drought can be observed by NDVI of Landsat data and Rainfall from CHIRPS with the developments of remote sensing technology in conjunction with Google Earth Engine (GEE), NDVI and rainfall of the study area can be extracted and the level of drought risk level can be identified which can support to the stakeholders for the disaster management. Long short-term memory algorithm is useful to forecast the amount of rainfall for drought events. Accessing drought risk for the future is crucial in the agricultural sector in order to reduce drought-induced starvation and hence the drought risk information including forecasted monthly rainfall provided by this system is beneficial to the communities.