Drought Early Warning: Theory and Practice, a book written by Chris Funk and Shrad Shukla, provides a comprehensive overview of drought-related scientific research, describes the available tools and techniques, and informs readers on how to use these tools and techniques to effectively identify, predict and communicate potential drought-related disasters. Throughout the book, the authors incorporate "climate change" as a pragmatic component of effective drought early warning, dealing explicitly with climate non-stationarity, increased climate variability, and the impacts of air temperature extremes. This comprehensive resource simultaneously addresses the physical, social and information management aspects of drought early warning. The book is available for purchase here.
A blog about climate science and making a difference.
Publications
2021
Grace, K., & Davenport, F. Climate variability and health in extremely vulnerable communities: investigating variations in surface water conditions and food security in the West African Sahel. Population and Environment. 2021. DOI: 10.1007/s11111-021-00375-9.
Grace, K., Verdin, A., Dorélien, A., Davenport, F., Funk, C., & Husak, G. Exploring Strategies for Investigating the Mechanisms Linking Climate and Individual-Level Child Health Outcomes: An Analysis of Birth Weight in Mali. Demography, 58(2), 499-526. 2021. DOI: 10.1215/00703370-8977484.
Andrew Hoell, Andrea E. Gaughan, Tamuka Magadzire, Laura Harrison. The Modulation of Daily Southern Africa Precipitation by the El Niño Southern Oscillation Across the Summertime Wet Season. AMS Journal of Climate. 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0379.1.
Shraddhanand Shukla, Martin Landsfeld, Michelle Anthony, Michael Budde, Gregory J. Husak, James Rowland, Chris Funk. Enhancing the Application of Earth Observations for Improved Environmental Decision-Making Using the Early Warning eXplorer (EWX). Frontiers in Climate. 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2020.583509.
Shraddhanand Shukla, Greg Husak, William Turner, Frank Davenport, Chris Funk, Laura Harrison, Natasha Krell. A slow rainy season onset is a reliable harbinger of drought in most food insecure regions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Plos One. 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242883.
2020
Adoum Alkhalil, Ibrahima Kadaoure, and Michel Kouadio. An Evaluation of 20-m ESA-CCI S2 Prototype LC Product. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.504334.
S. Lucille Blakeley, Stuart Sweeney, Gregory Husak, Laura Harrison, Chris Funk, Pete Peterson, and Daniel E. Osgood. Identifying Precipitation and Reference Evapotranspiration Trends in West Africa to Support Drought Insurance. MDPI: Remote Sensing. 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12152432.
Davenport, F., Dorélien, A., & Grace, K. Investigating the linkages between pregnancy outcomes and climate in sub-Saharan Africa. Population and Environment. 2020. DOI: 10.1007/s11111-020-00342-w
Shraddhanand Shukla, Kristi R. Arsenault, Abheera Hazra, Christa Peters-Lidard, Randal D. Koster, Frank Davenport, Tamuka Magadzire, Chris Funk, Sujay Kumar, Amy McNally, Augusto Getirana, Greg Husak, Ben Zaitchik, Jim Verdin, Faka Dieudonne Nsadisa, and Inbal Becker-Reshef. Improving early warning of drought-driven food insecurity in southern Africa using operational hydrological monitoring and forecasting products. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1187-2020.
Kristi R Arsenault, Shraddhanand Shukla, Abheera Hazra, Augusto Getirana, Amy McNally, Sujay V Kumar, Randal D Koster, Christa D Peters-Lidard, Benjamin F Zaitchik, Hamada Badr, Hahn Chul Jung, Bala Narapusetty, Mahdi Navari, Shugong Wang, David M Mocko, Chris Funk, Laura Harrison, Gregory J Husak, Alkhalil Adoum, Gideon Galu, Tamuka Magadzire, Jeanne Roningen, Michael Shaw, John Eylander, Karim Bergaoui, Rachael A McDonnell, James P Verdin. The NASA hydrological forecast system for food and water security applications. 2020. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0264.1.
Emily Williams, Chris Funk, Shraddhanand Shukla, Daniel McEvoy. Quantifying Human-Induced Temperature Impacts on the 2018 United States Four Corners Hydrologic and Agro-Pastoral Drought. 2020. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0187.1.
Augusto Getirana, Hahn Chul Jung, Kristi Arsenault, Shraddhanand Shukla, Sujay Kumar, Christa Peters‐Lidard, Issoufou Maigari, Bako Mamane. Satellite Gravimetry Improves Seasonal Streamflow Forecast Initialization in Africa. 2020. DOI: 10.1029/2019WR026259.
2019
Lisa V Alexander, Hayley J Fowler, Margot Bador, Ali Behrangi, Markus Donat, Robert Dunn, Chris Funk, James Goldie, Elizabeth Lewis, Marine Rogé. On the use of indices to study extreme precipitation on sub-daily and daily timescales. IoP Science. 2019. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab51b6.
Frank M Davenport, Laura Harrison, Shraddhanand Shukla, Greg Husak, Chris Funk, Amy McNally. Using out-of-sample yield forecast experiments to evaluate which earth observation products best indicate end of season maize yields. 2019. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab5ccd.
Chris Funk, Laura Harrison, Lisa Alexander, Pete Peterson, Ali Behrangi, Greg Husak. Exploring trends in wet-season precipitation and drought indices in wet, humid and dry regions. IoP Science. 2019. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab4a6c.
Shraddhanand Shukla, Kristi R. Arsenault, Abheera Hazra, Christa Peters-Lidard, Randal D. Koster, Frank Davenport, Tamuka Magadzire, Chris Funk, Sujay Kumar, Amy McNally, Augusto Getirana, Greg Husak, Ben Zaitchik, Jim Verdin, Faka Dieudonne Nsadisa, Inbal Becker-Reshef. Improving early warning of drought-driven food insecurity in Southern Africa using operational hydrologic monitoring and forecasting products. 2019. DOI: 10.5194/nhess-2019-267.
Annalise G. Blum, Ben Zaitchik, Sarah Alexander, Shu Wu, Ying Zhang, Shraddhanand Shukla, Temesgen Alemneh and Paul Block. A Grand Prediction: Communicating and Evaluating 2018 Summertime Upper Blue Nile Rainfall and Streamflow Forecasts in Preparation for Ethiopia’s New Dam. 2019. DOI: 10.3389/frwa.2019.00003.
Laura Harrison, Chris Funk, and Pete Peterson. Identifying changing precipitation extremes in Sub-Saharan Africa with gauge and satellite products. 2019. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab2cae.
Chris Funk, Pete Peterson, Seth Peterson, Shraddhanand Shukla, Frank Davenport, Joel Michaelsen, Kenneth R. Knapp, Martin Landsfeld, Gregory Husak, Laura Harrison, James Rowland, Michael Budde, Alex Meiburg, Tufa Dinku, Diego Pedreros, and Nicholas Mata. A high-resolution 1983-2016 Tmax Climate Data Record Based on Infrared Temperatures and Stations by the Climate Hazards Center. 2019. DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0698.1
Chris Funk, Shraddhanand Shukla, Wassila Mamadou Thiaw, James Rowland, Andrew Hoell, Amy McNally, Gregory Husak, Nicholas Novella, Michael Budde, Christa Peters-Lidard, Alkhalil Adoum, Gideon Galu, Diriba Korecha, Tamuka Magadzire, Mario Rodriguez, Miliaritiana Robjhon, Endalkachew Bekele, Kristi Arsenault, Pete Peterson, Laura Harrison, Steven Fuhrman, Frank Davenport, Martin Landsfeld, Diego Pedreros, Jossy P. Jacob, Curt Reynolds, Inbal Becker-Reshef, James Verdin. Recognizing the Famine Early Warning Systems Network: Over 30 Years of Drought Early Warning Advances and Partnerships Promoting Global Food Security. 2019. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0233.2
Laura Harrison, Chris Funk, Amy McNally, Shraddhanand Shukla, Gregory Husak. Pacific sea surface temperature linkages with Tanzania’s multi-season drying trends. 2019. DOI: 10.1002/joc.6003.
2018
Chris Funk, Diego Pedreros, Sharon Nicholson, Andrew Hoell, Diriba Korecha. Examining the Potential of Extreme “Western V” Sea Surface Temperatures to the 2017 March-June East African Drought. 2018. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0108.1.
Daniel Osgood, Bristol Powell, Rahel Diro, Carlos Farah, Markus Enenkel, Molly E Brown, Gregory Husak, S. Lucille Blakeley, Laura Hoffman, Jessica McCarty. Farmer Perception, Recollection, and Remote Sensing in Weather Index Insurance for Agriculture in the Developing World: An Ethiopia Case Study. 2018. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3242142.
Chris Funk, Sharon Nicholson, Martin Landsfeld, Pete Peterson, Douglass Klotter, Laura Harrison. Corrigendum: The Centennial Trends Greater Horn of Africa precipitation dataset. 2018. DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2018.121.
Nobre, G. G., F. Davenport, K. Bischiniotis, T. Veldkamp, B. Jongman, C. C. Funk, G. Husak, P. J. Ward and J. C. J. H. Aerts. 2018. "Financing agricultural drought risk through ex-ante cash transfers." Science of The Total Environment. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.406
Funk, C., L. Harrison, S. Shukla, C. Pomposi, G. Galu, D. Korecha, G. Husak, T. Magadzire, F. Davenport, C. Hillbruner, G. Eilerts, B. Zaitchik and J. Verdin. 2018. "Examining the role of unusually warm Indo-Pacific sea surface temperatures in recent African droughts." Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society(144): 360-383. DOI: 10.1002/qj.3266
Eakin, H., S. Sweeney, A. M. Lerner, K. Appendini, H. Perales, D. G. Steigerwald, C. F. Dewes, F. Davenport and J. C. Bausch. 2018. "Agricultural change and resilience: Agricultural policy, climate trends and market integration in the Mexican maize system." Anthropocene 23: 43-52. DOI: 10.1016/j.ancene.2018.08.002