Models validation and forecasting for drought risk reduction in developing countries

Drought risk reduction should be based on effective monitoring and early warning systems affordable by both privileged and vulnerable nations and regions. Drought can be pandemic over months and hence, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) at the time scale of one – month was modelled for drought monitoring and real-time forecasting. Developed predictive SPI models were used to forecast droughts in the seven meteorological stations in the region in the year 2009 and the forecast negative SPIs, reflecting droughts, were compared with drought class thresholds to predict and identify drought occurrences at different phases such as emergence watch, warning and emergency. The results showed drought forecasts of emergence phase at most of the stations. This implied that monitoring was necessary so that warning alert could be declared as soon as the drought emergence phase progressed into warning stage. It is recommended that the models should be used to forecast droughts ahead on monthly bases. Also, the simple predictive models should be developed for other less developed regions as the early warning services component of people-centred early warning systems for effective drought risk reduction in developing countries. Key words: Drought risk reduction, hazard risks, standardized precipitation index