Assessment of trends, variability and impacts of droughts across Brazil over the period 1980-2019.

Unlabelled: Drought indices are a numerical representation of drought conditions aimed to provide quantitative assessments of the magnitude, spatial extent, timing, and duration of drought events. Since the adverse effects of droughts vary according to the characteristics of the event, the socioeconomic vulnerabilities, exposed communities or environments, there is a profusion of drought indicators to assess drought impacts in different sectors. In this study, we evaluated the performance of two drought indices, the Standardized Precipitation Index-SPI and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index-SPEI over Brazil derived from gridded meteorological information over the period 1980-2019.

Drought monitoring in the Brazilian Semiarid region.

Drought is a natural and recurrent phenomenon. It is considered 'a natural disaster' whenever it occurs in an intensive manner in highly populated regions, resulting in significant damage (material and human) and loss (socioeconomic). This paper presents the efforts developed to monitor the impact of drought in the semiarid region of Northeast Brazil.