The global drought monitor aims to improve drought awareness and assist warnings of potential food, water and health problems.

Drought is a deficiency in rainfall over an extended period of time. It is a recurrent feature of climate which happens almost everywhere. During 2003, for example, several countries in Europe experienced moderate drought, while stronger droughts affected Eritrea, Ethiopia, Malawi, Zambia, Swaziland, Paraguay, Rajasthan and Baluchistan. Droughts can have devastating effects on agriculture, livestock and water supplies. They also lead to other disasters, namely famine, malnutrition, epidemics and displacement of populations from one area to another. To mitigate the impacts of drought and to help save lives humanitarian aid agencies require early access to clear information on the geographic scale of drought, its strength and how many people are being affected.

This is a free application which monitors the severity of drought on an ongoing basis. Until now, such monitoring has only been routine for North America, we aim to extend this to the rest of the world. The product will be updated monthly and have a spatial resolution of ~100km. A zoom facility is available to provide area specific information - simply left click on your mouse to draw a box around your region of interest. We hope to draw and build on our group’s expertise in drought assessment, drought prediction and in the on-line tracking and display of severe weather.

Suggestions for improvement will always be welcome!