Using Satellite Images for Drought Monitoring: a Knowledge Discovery Approach

The main objective of this research was to develop a new concept and approach to extracting knowledge from satellite imageries for near real-time drought monitoring in areas of Ethiopia that are experiencing food insecurity. The near real-time data downloaded from the Atlantic Bird satellite were used to produce the drought spatial distribution. Our results showed that approximately 40% of the observed areas exhibited negative deviation. In this study, the possibility of using the near real-time spatio-temporal Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) data for drought monitoring in food insecure areas of Ethiopia was tested, and promising results were obtained. The output of this research is expected to assist decision makers in taking timely and appropriate action in order to save millions of lives in drought-affected areas.