Six-Year Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Rain-Fed Agricultural Drought in a Tropical Monsoon Region: An NDDI-Based Assessment Using Sentinel-2 Imagery (2020–2025)
Keywords:
Agricultural drought, NDDI, rain-fed farming, Sentinel-2, spatiotemporal analysis, tropical monsoonAbstract
Rain-fed agricultural systems in tropical monsoon regions are increasingly vulnerable to recurring drought, yet high-resolution spatiotemporal assessments at the local scale remain limited. This study investigates the six-year (2020-2025) dynamics of agricultural drought in Tambakboyo District, Tuban Regency, Indonesia a representative rain-fed farming area using the Normalized Difference Drought Index (NDDI) derived from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery (10-20 m resolution). We processed 24 cloud-free images (September-December annually) to calculate NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and NDWI (Normalized Difference Water Index), which were integrated into NDDI. Results reveal a highly consistent seasonal pattern: drought intensifies from September, peaks in October-November, and declines in December with monsoon onset. The year 2022 exhibited the most extreme drought, with 68.5% of the district area (approx. 5,989 ha) classified as severe to very severe drought in October. Spatial analysis identified three persistent vulnerability hotspots-Kenanti, Gadon, and Plajan villages-where NDDI values consistently exceeded 0.28. Validation against reported crop failure (puso) data showed a strong positive correlation (r = 0.97, p < 0.01), with the 2022 peak drought coinciding with 1,847 ha of crop failure. Our findings demonstrate that NDDI effectively captures both the gradual onset and recovery phases of agricultural drought at sub-district scale.
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