Drought monitoring and assessment system for Argentina

Abstract

Droughts are adversities which can occur in almost any climatic zones even in those with normally excessive rainfall. Drought intensity and recurrence require continuing monitoring using indices which can be displayed to show temporal and geographic variability. The Center for Surveying and Assessment of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CREAN) has an operative system to generate several indices for detecting and assessing droughts at regional, provincial and country level. The monthly generated information is available to the user community in digital format in the CREAN webpage. Among the applications using the monitoring and assessment information are the economic analysis of agricultural losses and recommendations of adaptation mechanisms and improvements on water use efficiency during drought periods.