Long-term agricultural drought monitoring in the Central America Dry Corridor using Vegetation Health Index

The Central American Dry Corridor (CADC) spans Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. Over half of the population in this region is engaged in agricultural activities, with more than 73% of the rural population living in poverty, and 7.1 million people experiencing severe food insecurity. The increasingly frequent droughts exacerbate the challenges faced by agricultural production in this area. Long-term series of agricultural drought mapping can assist agricultural planners in minimizing the impact of drought on production. Based on data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) spanning from 2001 to 2021, this study will utilize the Vegetation Health Index to map agricultural drought in CADC at monthly, seasonal, and interannual scales. Multi-temporal agricultural drought mapping will reveal the spatiotemporal distribution patterns of agricultural drought in CADC over the past 20 years. Additionally, the study will employ the Mann-Kendall test and Sens' slope estimator to simulate the changing trends of agricultural drought, aiming to identify regions where agricultural drought is worsening.