Agricultural Reference Index for Drought (ARID)
Agricultural Reference Index for Drought (ARID) Index Name: Agricultural Reference Index for Drought (ARID) Ease of use: Red Origins: The ARID was based upon research done in the southeast United States by P. Woli at Mississippi State University and J.W. Jones, K.T. Ingram and C.W. Fraisse from the University of Florida in 2011. The […]
Deciles
Deciles Index name: Deciles. Ease of use: Green. Origins: A simple mathematical approach described by Gibbs and Maher in 1967 through their work with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Characteristics: Using the entire period of record of precipitation data for a location, the frequency and distribution of precipitation are ranked. The first decile is composed of the […]
Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI)
Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI) Index name: Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI). Ease of use: Green. Origins: Part of work done in the late 1960s by Keetch and Byram of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service Division. KBDI is mainly a fire index. Characteristics: Developed to identify drought in the early stages using a uniform method specific […]
Percent of Normal Precipitation
Percent of Normal Precipitation Index name: Percent of Normal Precipitation. Ease of use: Green. Origins: The percentage of any quantity is a simple statistical formulation. The exact origin or first use is not known in describing precipitation anomalies. Characteristics: Simple calculation that can be used to compare any time period for any location. Can be […]
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) Index name: Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). Ease of use: Green. Origins: The result of research and work done in 1992 at Colorado State University, United States, by McKee et al. The outcome of their work was first presented at the 8th Conference on Applied Climatology, held in January 1993. The basis […]
Weighted Anomaly Standardized Precipitation Index (WASP)
Weighted Anomaly Standardized Precipitation Index (WASP) Index name: Weighted Anomaly Standardized Precipitation Index (WASP). Ease of use: Green. Origins: Developed by B. Lyon to monitor precipitation in the tropical regions within 30 degrees of the equator. Characteristics: Uses gridded monthly precipitation data on a 0.5° by 0.5° resolution, and is based on 12-month overlapping sums […]
China Z Index (CZI)
China Z Index (CZI) Index name: China Z Index (CZI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed in China, CZI builds on the ease of calculation provided by SPI and improves on it by making the calculations even easier for the user. A statistical Z-score can be used to identify and monitor drought periods. The index […]
Crop Moisture Index (CMI)
Crop Moisture Index (CMI) Index name: Crop Moisture Index (CMI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: As part of original work done by Palmer in the early 1960s, CMI is usually calculated weekly along with the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) output as the short-term drought component in which the impact on agriculture is considered. Characteristics: […]
Drought Area Index (DAI)
Drought Area Index (DAI) Index name: Drought Area Index (DAI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed in the late 1970s by Bhalme and Mooley at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. Characteristics: Developed as a method to improve understanding of monsoon rainfall in India, determining both flood and drought episodes using monthly precipitation. By comparing monthly […]
Drought Reconnaissance Index (DRI)
Drought Reconnaissance Index (DRI) Index name: Drought Reconnaissance Index (DRI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Work was initiated by Tsakiris and Vangelis at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. Characteristics: Consists of a drought index that contains a simplified water balance equation considering precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. It has three outputs: the initial value, the normalized […]
Effective Drought Index (EDI)
Effective Drought Index (EDI) Index name: Effective Drought Index (EDI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed through work done by Byum and Wilhite, along with staff at NDMC. Characteristics: Uses daily precipitation data to develop and compute several parameters: effective precipitation (EP), daily mean EP, deviation of EP (DEP) and the standardized value of DEP. These parameters […]
Aridity Index (AI)
Aridity Index (AI) Index name: Aridity Index (AI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed from work done by De Martonne in 1925; aridity is defined as the ratio of precipitation to mean temperature. Characteristics: Can be used to classify the climates of various regions, because the ratio of precipitation to temperature provides a method for determining an area’s […]
Crop Specific Drought Index (CSDI)
Crop Specific Drought Index (CSDI) Index name: Crop Specific Drought Index (CSDI). Ease of use: Red. Origins: Developed by Meyer et al. in the early 1990s at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to examine the impact of drought on actual crop yield. Characteristics: By calculating a basic soil water balance, it takes into account the impact of drought, […]
Reclamation Drought Index (RDI)
Reclamation Drought Index (RDI) Index name: Reclamation Drought Index (RDI). Ease of use: Red. Origins: The United States Bureau of Reclamation developed this drought index in the mid-1990s as a method to trigger drought emergency relief funds associated with public lands. Characteristics: Developed to define drought severity as well as duration and can also be […]
Soil Moisture Anomaly (SMA)
Soil Moisture Anomaly (SMA) Index name: Soil Moisture Anomaly (SMA). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed by Bergman et al. at the National Weather Service in the United States during the mid-1980s as a way to assess global drought conditions. Characteristics: Can use weekly or monthly precipitation and potential evapotranspiration values in a simple water balance equation. […]
Hydro-thermal Coefficient of Selyaninov (HTC)
Hydro-thermal Coefficient of Selyaninov (HTC) Index name: Hydro-thermal Coefficient of Selyaninov (HTC). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed by Selyaninov in the Russian Federation and based on the Russian climate. Characteristics: Uses temperature and precipitation values and is sensitive to dry conditions specific to the climate regime being monitored. It is flexible enough to be used […]
NOAA Drought Index (NDI)
NOAA Drought Index (NDI) Index name: NOAA Drought Index (NDI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed in the early 1980s at the Joint Agricultural Weather Facility as part of the United States Department of Agriculture’s attempt to use weather and climate data for crop production estimates around the world. Characteristics: A precipitation-based index in […]
Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)
Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) Index name: Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed in the 1960s as one of the first attempts to identify droughts using more than just precipitation data. Palmer was tasked with developing a method to incorporate temperature and precipitation data with water balance information to identify […]
Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI)
Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI) Index name: Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Work began in the early 1960s by van Rooy. Characteristics: Uses normalized precipitation values based upon the station history of a particular location. Comparison to the current period puts the output into a historical perspective. Input parameters: Precipitation. Applications: Addresses […]
Palmer Z Index
Palmer Z Index Index name: Palmer Z Index. Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: The Palmer Z Index responds to short-term conditions better than PDSI and is typically calculated for much shorter timescales, enabling it to identify rapidly developing drought conditions. As part of the original work done by Palmer in the early 1960s, the Palmer […]
Self-Calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (sc-PDSI)
Self-Calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (sc-PDSI) Index name: Self-Calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (sc-PDSI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Initial work was conducted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln by Wells et al. in the early 2000s. Characteristics: Accounts for all the constants contained in the PDSI and includes a methodology in which the constants are calculated dynamically based […]
Agricultural Reference Index for Drought (ARID)
Agricultural Reference Index for Drought (ARID) Index name: Agricultural Reference Index for Drought (ARID). Ease of use: Red. Origins: Based upon research done in the south-east United States by Woli at Mississippi State University and Jones et al. at the University of Florida in 2011. Characteristics: Predicts the status of moisture availability in the soil. It uses a […]
Standardized Anomaly Index (SAI)
Standardized Anomaly Index (SAI) Index name: Standardized Anomaly Index (SAI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Introduced by E.B. Kraus in the mid-1970s and was examined closely by Katz and Glantz at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, United States, in the early 1980s. SAI was developed based on RAI, and RAI is a component of […]
Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)
Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) Index name: Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed by Vicente-Serrano et al. at the Instituto Pirenaico de Ecologia in Zaragoza, Spain. Characteristics: As a relatively new drought index, SPEI uses the basis of SPI but includes a temperature component, allowing the index to account for the effect of […]
Palmer Hydrological Drought Index (PHDI)
Palmer Hydrological Drought Index (PHDI) Index name: Palmer Hydrological Drought Index (PHDI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Part of the suite of indices developed by Palmer in the 1960s with the United States Weather Bureau. Characteristics: Based on the original PDSI and modified to take into account longer-term dryness that will affect water storage, streamflow and […]
Surface Water Supply Index (SWSI)
Surface Water Supply Index (SWSI) Index name: Surface Water Supply Index (SWSI). Ease of use: Yellow. Origins: Developed by Shafer and Dezman in 1982 to directly address some of the limitations identified in PDSI. Characteristics: Takes into account the work done by Palmer with PDSI but adds additional information including water supply data (snow […]
Aggregate Dryness Index (ADI)
Aggregate Dryness Index (ADI) Index name: Aggregate Dryness Index (ADI). Ease of use: Red. Origins: The result of work done at California State University, United States by Keyantash and at the University of California-Berkeley, United States by Dracup in 2003. Characteristics: A multivariate regional drought index that looks at all water resources across many timescales […]
Standardized Snowmelt and Rain Index (SMRI)
Standardized Snowmelt and Rain Index (SMRI) Index name: Standardized Snowmelt and Rain Index (SMRI). Ease of use: Red. Origins: Developed to account for frozen precipitation and how it contributes to runoff into streams as snowmelt. The work was conducted by Staudinger et al. and tested over several Swiss basins. Characteristics: With methods similar to SPI, SMRI […]
Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI)
Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI) Index name: Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI). Ease of use: Green. Origins: Developed by a team of scientists from NDMC, the United States Geological Survey’s Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, and the United States Geological Survey Flagstaff Field Center. Characteristics: Developed as a drought index that was intended […]
Combined Drought Indicator (CDI)
Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) Index name: Combined Drought Indicator (CDI). Ease of use: Green. Origins: Developed by Sepulcre-Canto et al. at the European Drought Observatory as a drought index for Europe in which SPI, SMA and fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fAPAR) are combined as an indicator for droughts affecting agriculture. Characteristics: Composed […]
Aridity Anomaly Index (AAI)
Aridity Anomaly Index (AAI) Index name: Aridity Anomaly Index (AAI). Ease of use: Green. Origins: Developed in India by the India Meteorological Department. Characteristics: A real-time drought index in which water balance is considered. The Aridity Index (AI) is computed for weekly or two-weekly periods. For each period, the actual aridity for the period […]