Determination of An Optimized Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing Index to Promote Real-Time Drought Monitoring Over the Heterogeneous Land Covers

In this article, new index, the Optimized Synthetized Drought Index (OSDI), is suggested for real-time monitoring of this phenomenon in areas with heterogeneous land covers. The precipitation, one of the important factors in drought, measured by ground stations and improved byTRMM satellite data. Each of the three normalized moisture indices, including Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Visible Short-Infrared Drought Index (VSD), and the Surface Water Capacity Index (SWCI), individually enter to principal component analysis (PCA), with Precipitation Condition Index (PCI) and land surface temperature index (LST). Themaincomponentsof these PCA are definedasSynthetized Drought Indices, called SDI1, SDI2, and SDI3.Then, the performance of three output indices is evaluated by using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) in 1 and 3 month scale.Validation results indicate that the synthesized index of PCA on the normalized VSDI, LST and PCI, provides the best performance in real-time monitoring of drought.This Index is called (OSDI). Then, 42 Landsat7 images were employed to evaluate the ability of suggested indices inheterogeneous land. The three normalized indices of NDVI, SWCI and VSDI, as the only effective factor in different performance of SDI1, SDI2 and OSDI, is produced by the spectral bands of Landsat7 images and their performance in various lands covers were evaluated using SPI index. High correlation between normalized-VSDI and one-month-SPIhas approved capability of OSDI in real-time monitoring of drought in heterogeneous areas. OSDI maps showed that in the provinces of Tehran and Qom of Iran, in 2008, 2009, and 2014, a severe drought has occurred in Central and South-East regions of Tehran, and also at central and northern parts of Qom.