Agriculture Drought and Food Security Monitoring Over the Horn of Africa (HOA) from Space

Global climate change has been resulting in more extreme weather and climate events, such as drought and heat wave. Food security has become a critical issue because of global population increase and extreme weather and climate events. The Horn of Africa (HOA, including Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia) is one of the most food-insecure regions in the world. Millions of people in the HOA are undernourished and at the risk of famine. Food security is a very complicated and interdisciplinary problem across many sectors. To study food security, it is essential to investigate innovative solutions to integrate and analyze various related data and information, especially satellite remote sensing measurements from space, and weather and climate information from ground observations. Satellite Remote sensing measurements have advantages in spatial and temporal coverage and can be used for long-term monitoring of crop status and drought events from space. This study aims to investigate the impacts of extreme agriculture drought and food security in the HOA region using the remote sensing data products from the NASA MODIS Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), a key instrument onboard the NASA satellites Terra and Aqua. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), Temperature Condition Index (TCI) and Vegetation Health Index (VHI) data from year 2000 to 2017 are derived from the MODIS land surface reflectance and land surface temperature products and analyzed for assessment of vegetation health and the impacts of extreme drought events. The spatial patterns and temporal trends of vegetation stress and extreme drought events are discovered, which demonstrates the critical regions and period with food security. The results also show that the drought and food insecurity have increasing trends. For a case study, the strongest El Niño event of 2015–2016 impacting on extreme drought events in the HOA is analyzed. This study provides an integrated approach to food security monitoring and assessment, which is very helpful for in decision making and strategic planning for agriculture management, disaster relief and food security.