Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Environmental Earth Sciences (2020) 79:23 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-019-8751-9 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Satellite‑based (2000–2015) drought hazard assessment with indices, mapping, and monitoring of Potohar plateau, Punjab, Pakistan Ramla Khan 1  · Hammad Gilani 1  · Naveed Iqbal 2  · Imran Shahid 1 Received: 27 March 2019 / Accepted: 27 November 2019 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Drought is one of the deadly natural disasters that leave tearstained faces and broken dreams in its wake. Lifecycle as we know it comes to a halt during a dry season in a region. The purpose of this study was to observe the temporal and spatial variation of droughts in the rain-fed area of Potohar plateau (22,254 km 2 ), Punjab, Pakistan, from 2000 to 2015, through remotely sensed satellite data, available at the database of Google Earth Engine. Potohar consists of four major districts of the country; Chakwal, Attock, Rawalpindi, and Jhelum. From 2000 to 2015, indices calculated were: standard precipitation index (SPI), standard precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), vegetation condition index (VCI), precipitation condi- tion index (PCI), soil moisture condition index (SMCI), and temperature condition index (TCI). In this study, SPI and SPEI pointed out meteorological droughts in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2010, and 2012, which were taken as base years for drought in the study. The study concluded that the main factor involved in the drought severity is not one, but rather a com- bined accumulation of temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture. Soil moisture and precipitation afect the vegetation in the area more so than the temperature of the land surface. Soil moisture was heavily infuenced by the amount of precipita- tion. The land surface temperature was seasonal dependent. The surface temperature was warmest in Chakwal and Attock, while Rawalpindi had the coldest land surface temperature. Soil moisture increased with precipitation. Soil moisture was high in Rawalpindi and Attock during drought years. Keywords Drought monitoring · Satellite-based drought indices · Google Earth Engine · Spatial–temporal variation · Potohar plateau · Pakistan Introduction Drought is one of those disasters that do not have one spe- cifc reason for its occurrence. Sometimes, less rainfall than usual can cause a short-term drought (Palmer 1965), and then comes the time when a long-term drought is caused by a number of factors like air temperature, land surface tem- perature, soil moisture, and other precipitation phenomena. When a region is going through a drought situation, it faces a severe shortage of water, and since water is the basic need of all living things, its defciency afects lives catastrophically. Lifecycle as we know it comes to a halt during a dry season in a region (Memon 2012). A drought has diferent meanings for people from diferent occupations. Drought is the sort of phenomena that infuences all irrespective of which feld of life they belong to. Numerous studies have proven that hazards like foods and drought hit the unprivileged sector of the society more severely than others (Kurosaki 2015). Experts have divided drought into different classes throughout history, but in the modern world, drought has four major types; meteorological, agriculture, hydrologi- cal, and socioeconomic (Wilhite and Glantz 1985). All four types of drought usually do not occur at the same time, but rather, the prolong duration of one leads to the occurrence of the other (Zargar et al. 2011). Sometimes, few of them might occur simultaneously, but that is rarely the case. Droughts are usually determined in terms of their drastic impacts, but there is still a need for a physical method that could calculate drought (Vicente-Serrano et al. 2012). In other words, there are a number of probabilistic methods, but the need for a deterministic method is still necessary. * Hammad Gilani hammad.gilani@gmail.com 1 Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan 2 Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, Islamabad, Pakistan