Drought Early Warning System: Identification of Onset End Magnitude (SPI and Spei) and Composite Index

This book encompasses the characterisation of meteorological drought by the newly invented index called “SPI – Standardised Precipitation index” approved by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in June 2011. It is a simple index with precipitation as the only parameter and can be computed for different scales (1-3-6-12-24 months) and compared across regions with different climatic zones. The author has depicted graphs with regard to trends, onset, end, magnitude with dates of occurrence of droughts over a period of 102 years with regard to rainfall and temperature with the aid of SPI and SPEI, for Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh, India. To characterise the agricultural drought, climatological water balance was carried for a period of 30 years for the data.

In this book a composite index called “Indian drought monitor” with ten indicators and indices has been developed for releasing drought information weekly considering and incorporating review from a group of climatologists, extension agents and others across the nation. This will lead the country economically forward.

Muni Rathnam Pantula was born in Madanapalle Town Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh. He did his Bachelor's in Engineering in Civil Engineering from Government Engineering College at Anantapur.

He was trained in water resource management in Indian Basins at Faridabad and Srinagar in a programme sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Ground Water Board, Government of India.

He worked in the department of Irrigation and State Ground Water Department and also as Technical Consultant to the Government of Andhra Pradesh, India for Andhra Pradesh Economic restructuring project aided by the World Bank.

He was honoured with many awards like the C.C. DALAL award by Institution of Engineers, India for his work on conversion of brackish water to drinking water for ISRO colonies. The State Center Prize of Institution of Engineers, India for the work he did for the conservation of base flows in Swarnamukhi River Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh. He was selected for the Prominent Citizen of India award in recognition of performance by Progressive Publishers of India, a leading publishing house in New Delhi for the year 2008.