Regional Landsat-Based Drought Monitoring from 1982 to 2014

Drought is a serious natural hazard with far-reaching impacts including soil damages, economic losses, and threatening the livelihood and health of local residents. The goal of the present work was to monitor the vegetation health across Lebanon in 2014 using remote sensing techniques. Landsat images datasets, with a spatial resolution of 30 m and from different platforms, were used to identify the VCI (Vegetation Condition Index) and TCI (Temperature Condition Index). The VCI was based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) datasets. The TCI used land surface temperature (LST) datasets. As a result, the VHI (Vegetation Health Index) was produced and classified into five categories: extreme, severe, moderate, mild, and no drought. The results show practically no extreme drought (similar to 0.27 km(2)) in the vegetated area in Lebanon during 2014. Moderate to severe drought mainly occurred in the north of Lebanon (i.e., the Amioun region and the plain of Akkar). The Tyr region and the Bekaa valley experienced a low level of drought (mild drought). This approach allows decision makers to monitor, investigate and resolve drought conditions more effectively.