Assessment of drought variability in South Punjab using MODIS data: a spatio-temporal analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/EQ.2026.042%20Keywords
MODIS-based indicators, drought severity, hydrological deficits, temperature, vegetation healthAbstract
South Punjab experiences recurrent pre-monsoon droughts that place severe stress on its environment and pose a serious challenge to crop production. This study examines the spatial and temporal variability of drought across South Punjab from 2000 to 2025, characterizing the region's pre-monsoon drought dynamics using six MODIS-derived indicators: land surface temperature (LST), the Temperature Condition Index (TCI), the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), the Vegetation Health Index (VHI), the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI). Image processing was performed on the Google Earth Engine platform, and the resulting time series were analyzed using box plots, standard deviations, and Mann-Kendall trend tests. The results reveal pronounced intra-regional heterogeneity, with frequent outliers across districts. Mean VHI was lowest in 2005, recovered through 2010-2015, declined again in 2020, and reached its highest value in 2025, while LST was lowest and vegetation health greatest in 2025. NDWI nonetheless indicated severe surface-moisture deficits in both 2020 and 2025, exposing a disconnect between vegetation greenness and underlying water availability that points to the region's growing reliance on artificial irrigation to sustain pre-monsoon cropping amid escalating hydrological deficits. These findings suggest that, even as remote sensing and GIS provide an increasingly capable toolkit for drought monitoring, intensifying anthropogenic pressures mean that agro-meteorological crises in South Punjab are becoming socio-natural rather than purely geophysical hazards.
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