African Flood and Drought Monitor
The African Flood and Drought Monitor is a powerful and versatile web-based tool that can monitor and predict periods of drought, flooding or other extreme events by providing real-time data for more meteorological and hydrological variables, allowing users to visualize and interact with region-specific data.
The African Flood and Drought Monitor is an experimental system for early warning of flood and drought conditions. It has been developed by Princeton Climate Institute (PCI) in collaboration with University of Southampton and Princeton University, with funding support from UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrology Programme (IHP) and the International Center for Integrated Water Resrouces Management (ICIWaRM). The system is based on a set of ground, satellite and modeled datasets, which are combined to provide a consistent picture of hydrological conditions close to real-time, as well as forecasts out to 7-days for floods and out to 6 months for drought.
Precipitation (P) | MSWEP satellite-mode-gauge dataset | Meteorological | 5km grid | daily |
Runoff (R) | HBV hydrological model | Hydrological | 5km grid | daily |
Evaporation (ET) | HBV hydrological model | Hydrological | 5km grid | daily |
Soil moisture (SM) | HBV hydrological model | Hydrological | 5km grid | daily |
Streamflow (Q) | RAPID river routing model | Hydrological | River reach | daily |
SPI-1/SPI-3 (1 or 3 month Standardized Precipitation Index) | MSWEP satellite-mode-gauge dataset | Meteorological drought | 5km grid | daily |
SM index (standardized anomaly) | HBV hydrological model | Agricultural drought | 5km grid | daily |
Q percentile (pctl) | RAPID river routing model | Hydrological drought | River reach | daily |
P percentile (pctl) | MSWEP satellite-mode-gauge dataset | Potential flooding from rainfall - heavy (R95) or extreme (R99) | 5km grid | daily |
SPI-1/SPI-3 (1 or 3 month Standardized Precipitation Index) | MSWEP satellite-mode-gauge dataset | Meteorological wet conditions (longer-term) | 5km grid | daily |
SM index (standardized anomaly) | HBV hydrological model | Agricultural wet conditions – indicates wet soils and potential water logging | 5km grid | daily |
Streamflow (Q) percentile | RAPID river routing model | Hydrological wet conditions – indicates flood flows above Q95 or Q99 | River reach | daily |