Early Determination and Monitoring of Droughts in Kazakhstan

Develop methodology for thorough monitoring of the crop environment and conditions and estimation of wheat production over a large area which allows for the detection and monitoring of drought expansion, duration and impact.	A Vegetation Temporal Index (VTI) which is a dynamic modification of the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been developed at the ISR to serve as a base indicator for the early identification of adverse weather conditions and the estimation of their impact on future yield.	The method involves an integrated evaluation of spring temperature and moisture conditions (March-May) on the basis of AVHRR/ NOAA NDVI data. The verification of results for 1991, 1992, 1995 and 1996 years have shown a good correlation between VTI values and drought locations.
1991: Strong drought 1992: Good conditions 1996: Latest data Kazakhstan: Time series of vegetation index values during the week August 6-12		Real-time monitoring was carried out using data obtained from NOAA/AVHRR through the reception of D-Band digital signals from a NOAA-HRPT polar-orbiting satellite. Data are processed using ER Mapper, ARC/INFO and SCANOR software operated on Telonics and SUN workstations. Four ISR staff members are involved in the project. Time series of vegetation index values for the territory of Kazakhstan.

Contact : Edige Zakarin, Lev Spivak, Space Research Institute (SRI), National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Shevchenko st. 15, 480021 Almaty, Kazakhstan Phone: + 7 3272 61 58 53 Fax: + 7 3272 49 43 55 E-mail: zak@kaziki.alma-ata.su, iki@app.academ.alma-ata.su | http://smis.iki.rssi.ru/inform/sri-kaz.htm