Researchers at the University of Sussex have developed a system which can accurately predict a period of drought in East Africa up to ten weeks ahead.
Satellite imagery is already used in Kenya to monitor the state of pastures and determine the health of the vegetation using a metric known as the Vegetation Condition Index. These are conveyed to decision-makers in arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya through drought early warning systems.
However, these systems, operated by the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), only allows organisations and communities to intervene when the impacts of drought have already occurred. By that point, such extreme weather would already have had a devastating effect on the livelihood of local people.
Instead, a team of researchers from the University of Sussex and the NDMA have developed a new system called Astrocast. Part-funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the project allows humanitarian agencies and drought risk managers to be proactive when it comes to dealing with the impacts of extreme weather by forecasting changes before they occur.
In a research paper published in Remote Sensing of the Environment, they explain how an interdisciplinary team of data scientists (astronomers and mathematicians) along with geographers, used techniques from astronomy science; processing data directly from space telescopes before using advance statistical methods to forecast extreme weather.
