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Title:	Discovering trends of droughts using environmental and quantitative indicators in Tihama Plain, Yemen
Authors:	Ali Ahmed Ali Dhifallah (P77341)
Supervisor:	Noorazuan Md. Hashim, Dr.
Keywords:	Droughts Indicators Mitigation Tihama Plain Yemen Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia -- Dissertations
Issue Date:	8-Oct-2017
Description:	Drought remains the most frequent and serious environmental threat in Middle East area. In Yemen, drought has been negatively affecting both livelihood and sustainable development of the country. This study aims to assess severity of both meteorological and agricultural drought in Tihama plain, Yemen. Beside that, this study focuses the impact of drought on vegetation cover and sand dunes as well as to evaluate possible mitigation strategies for minimising drought hazard in that area. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI 3 and 6 month timescales) was used to analyze the quantitative indicators of drought for analyzing both meteorological and agricultural droughts, covering the periods 1980 - 2010. Landsat TM5 of 1985 and OLI8 of 2015 were used to evaluate the environmental indicators of drought using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to recognize the progressive decline of vegetation based on the fact that vegetation absorbs red light and reflects infrared light of the electromagnetic spectrum. Environmental indicators as shown by increasing sand dunes and decreasing vegetation cover revealed a progressive increase in the severity of drought over last 30 years. During this period, areas affected by severe drought increased by 26 percent while areas that were free of drought decreased by 38 percent. Spatially, Bajil was found to be the worst affected area in terms of both agricultural and meteorological droughts with a total of ten agricultural and eight meteorological drought years. On the other hand, Jerbeh was the least affected area with a total of five agricultural and four meteorological droughts during the same period (1980-2010). It has also been recognized that, the year 1991 recorded the worst drought both in terms of distribution and severity, during which some locations recorded up to - 4.33 SPI negative values signifying extreme drought condition. However, the overall result revealed that, severe drought was the most pervasive accounting for 54 percent. This is followed by moderate drought 31 percent, mild drought 6 percent and no drought 9 percent. Finally, it is recommended that, the government should seriously look into the drought issue through improving resource management practices and development of drought assessment and implementation unit to help minimize the adverse effects of drought. In doing this, concerned authorities should work closely with stakeholders who might be directly or indirectly affected by drought. Socio-economic data should also be taken into consideration when assessing drought risk to better understand the vulnerable groups.,Certification of Master's/Doctoral Thesis" is not avaiable
Pages:	240
Publisher:	UKM, Bangi
Appears in Collections:	Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Fakulti Sains Sosial dan Kemanusiaan

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