A Weekly Pulse on Drought: Continuous Updates to US Drought Monitor in the Community Catalog
Ever wondered how I maintain continuous collections and update the GEE Community Catalog? Come take a look at the weekly updated United States Drought Monitor and how it's updated weekly.
Every Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) unveils a vital snapshot of drought conditions across the United States. Since its inception in 1999, the effort has been spearheaded by the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). As per the USDM webpage which can be found here weekly release follows the following guidelines.
The data cutoff for Drought Monitor maps is each Tuesday at 8 a.m. EDT. The maps, which are based on analysis of the data, are released each Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
This is probably the most updated dataset in the community catalog with a weekly update every Thursday from the National Drought Mitigation Center.
Data: Classifications and Structure 📂
The dataset consists of visualized PNG files 📷 that can be downloaded regionally and also link back to geospatial datasets which is what is consumed to update the collection within the community catalog. The dataset is further delineated into five distinct classifications:
Abnormally Dry (D0): Areas that may be entering or exiting drought conditions, displaying initial signs of dryness.
Moderate Drought (D1): Areas experiencing some dryness, with impacts on agriculture, water supply, and vegetation.
Severe Drought (D2): Widespread water shortages, crop loss, and water restrictions affecting both agriculture and urban areas.
Extreme Drought (D3): Major crop and pasture losses, widespread water shortages, and restrictions on water use for both agricultural and urban areas.
Exceptional Drought (D4): Exceptional and widespread crop and pasture losses, water emergencies, and widespread water shortages, with significant impacts on agriculture and society.
Automated Data Pipeline: Ingesting and Structuring Drought Monitor Data ⚙️
With over 1263+ weeks of Drought monitor data, the drought Monitor GIS Datasets are available as shapefiles. These datasets are processed and the pipeline operates with a weekly cadence, systematically ingesting shapefiles that delineate five distinct drought classes or categories. They are then converted into a raster collection to allow for quick transformation and ease of applying raster tools to this collection.
I have created the overall fetch, ingest, and convert operations into a Python script that can be called by a cron job or added as a GitHub action. For example, note how the script running below for today’s ingest. 💻
Vector to raster conversions for this collection use MODE as the pyramiding policy since the datasets are classified as value vectors. To maintain temporal accuracy, automated assignment of start and end dates is included. The end date corresponds to the release week, while the start date is set to the prior week.
Drought Monitor in the Community Catalog 🛠️
You can find a link to the Community catalog page for the weekly United States Drought Monitor (USDM) here. This dataset was reprocessed and the metadata was updated to fix any remaining issues along with running checks on pyramiding policies to be applied to all images in the image collection.
Example code from Awesome GEE Community Catalog here and in an Earth Engine App here
Since October 2023 I have added this dataset directly within the Earth Engine data catalog within the Community Catalog contributions.
You can also find the Earth Engine curated page as a copy of our community catalog page page here.
The U.S. Drought Monitor dataset, updated weekly by the National Drought Mitigation Center, stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and automation in delivering vital drought intelligence. Through automated data pipelines and continuous improvements, the dataset remains up-to-date and accessible within the Earth Engine Community Catalog, serving as a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers, and communities alike.
🌍✨ Do you want to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the GEE Community Catalog? Let's connect on Linkedin and Github to collaborate, share dataset ideas, provide valuable feedback, and join the exciting conversation! 💬🤝
Your support is invaluable for sustaining and growing this incredible project in the long run. 🚀 If you appreciate the hard work and dedication behind these efforts, please consider giving the GitHub repository a star ⭐️ to increase its visibility and help spread the word far and wide! 📢🌐