Assessing the use of Coarse Resolution Imagery for Prioritizing Drought Prone/Severely Degraded Areas for Mitigation Policy Options in South Africa

Drought is a recurrent climate process occurring with uneven temporal and spatial characteristics over a broad area and over an extended period of time. Assessing the severity of drought using satellite-derived information is becoming increasingly important in disaster risk management, monitoring degradation and climate variability. Drought does not affect only agricultural productivity and hydrological resources but also the natural vegetation. It may therefore accelerate degradation processes when associated with destructive human activities. Land degradation occurs mostly because of land management practices or human developments that are unsustainable over a period of time. All these processes become more hazardous if they continue unchecked. This study assesses the use of different satellite-derived vegetation indices for identifying drought prone and severely degraded areas in South Africa. These efforts will play a significant role in guiding policy on land recovery and mitigation opportunities. Results show the potential for using satellite imagery to prioritize areas that seek immediate mitigation. Different indices are experimented to produce the optimum output that suits the purpose of the study.