Study on Dynamic Monitoring of Drought in China

Drought is one of the major natural disasters, it occurs frequently with wide range covering almost whole China. Drought affects agriculture, urban water supply and ecological environment, which has caused large losses in China. Drought monitoring and assessment is an important means of drought management for drought relief funds allocation, farmers` loss subsidy, drought relief emergency response initiation, media publicity and so on. This paper introduces the current situation, problems and prospects of drought monitoring and assessment in China. Then, the drought monitoring index, drought monitoring model and drought monitoring system are mainly presented. Moreover, the spatial-temporal continuity and accuracy of drought monitoring products are analyzed, and the effects of spatial resolution, land cover, irrigation and drought grading criteria on the accuracy of drought evaluation are discussed. Finally, the future application of drought monitoring and evaluation is prospected, and suggestions are put forward on the construction of comprehensive model, database and business platform for agricultural drought, urban drought and ecological drought.