1st Edition
Developing an Impact-Based Combined Drought Index for Monitoring Crop Yield Anomalies in the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Drought monitoring
1.3 Problem statement
1.4 Research objectives
1.5 Main steps in research methodology
1.6 Research significance and innovation
1.7 Description of the study area
1.8 Dissertation structure
2. Spatio-temporal assessment of meteorological drought under the influence of varying record length
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Stations selection and data analysis
2.3 Selection of the Probability Distribution Function (PDF) for the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
2.4 Methodology of experiments
2.5 Results and discussion
2.6 Conclusion
3. Comparison of the performance of six drought indices in assessing and characterising historic drought events
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Data
3.3 Drought indicators
3.4 Methods
3.5 Results and discussion
3.6 Conclusion
4. Developing a combined drought index and prediction model to monitor drought-related crop yield reduction
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Data
4.3 Methods
4.4 Results and discussion
4.5 Conclusions
5. Application of Earth observation data for developing a combined drought index and crop yield prediction model
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Data
5.3 Methods
5.4 Results and discussion
5.5 Prediction models of crop yield anomalies
5.6 Conclusions
6. Summary, conclusions and recommendations
6.1 Summary
6.2 Conclusions
6.3 Recommendations
References
Appendix A: Gamma distribution based SPI calculation
Appendix B: Time series of drought indices
Appendix C: Spider web plots of drought indicator results for selected stations
Appendix D: Scatter plots of drought indices versus crop yield anomalies
Appendix E: The regression equations developed for the selected eight zones and for the four crops
Biography
Yared was born in Ambo town in Ethiopia in 1979. He studied his Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Irrigation Engineering at the former Arbaminch Water Technology Institute (AWTI) the later Arbaminch University where he graduated in 2002. He joined Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT), Ethiopia for Maters studies in 2007, and graduated with a MSc degree in Civil Engineering, with specialization in Hydraulic Engineering in 2009. Yared pursued a PhD in the "sandwich programme" between IHE Delft Institute for Water Education/TU-Delft, The Netherlands, and Ambo University, Ethiopia and graduated in 2018. Since 2016, he has been working in the National Drought Mitigation Centre (NDMC) under the school of Natural Resources of the University of Lincoln-Nebraska, USA, as a visiting scientist.
