Validation Analysis of Drought Monitoring Based on FY-4 Satellite

Abstract

Droughts are natural disasters that have significant implications for agricultural production and human livelihood. Under climate change, the drought process is accelerating, such as the intensification of flash droughts. The efficient and quick monitoring of droughts has increasingly become a crucial measure in responding to extreme drought events. We utilized multi-imagery data from the geostationary meteorological satellite FY-4A within one day; implemented the daily Maximum Value Composite (MVC) method to minimize interference from the clouds, atmosphere, and anomalies; and developed a method for calculating the daily-scale Temperature Vegetation Drought Index (TVDI), which is a dryness index. Three representative drought events (Yunnan Province, Guangdong Province, and the Huanghuai region) from 2021 to 2022 were selected for validation, respectively. We evaluated the spatial and temporal effects of the TVDI with the Soil Relative Humidity Index (SRHI) and the Meteorological Drought Composite Index (MCI). The results show that the TVDI has stronger negative correlations with the MCI and SRHI in moderate and severe drought events. Meanwhile, the TVDI and SRHI exhibited similar trends. The trends of drought areas identified by the TVDI, SRHI, and MCI were consistent, while the drought area identified by the TVDI was slightly higher than the SRHI. Yunnan Province has the most concentrated distribution, which is mostly between 16.93 and 25.22%. The spatial distribution of the TVDI by FY-4A and MODIS is generally consistent, and the differences in severe drought areas may be attributed to disparities in the NDVI. Furthermore, the TVDI based on FY-4A provides a higher number of valid pixels (437 more pixels in the Huanghuai region) than that based on MODIS, yielding better overall drought detection. The spatial distribution of the TVDI between FY-4A and Landsat-8 is also consistent. FY-4A has the advantage of acquiring a complete image on a daily basis, and lower computational cost in regional drought monitoring. The results indicate the effectiveness of the FY-4A TVDI in achieving daily-scale drought monitoring, with a larger number of valid pixels and better spatial consistency with station indices. This study provides a new solution for drought monitoring using a geostationary meteorological satellite from different spatial–temporal perspectives to facilitate comprehensive drought monitoring.