The Use of Remotely Sensed Rainfall for Managing Drought Risk: A Case Study of Weather Index Insurance in Zambia
The Use of Remotely Sensed Rainfall for Managing Drought Risk: A Case Study of Weather Index Insurance in Zambia
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DOI：
10.3390/rs8040342
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发表时间：
2016-04-01
期刊：
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Brown, Matthew
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Black, Emily;Tarnavsky, Elena;Brown, Matthew
在雨量稀少的地区，遥感降雨正越来越多地用于管理与气候有关的风险。基于这些数据的应用程序必须最大限度地利用方法的技巧，以避免因提供误导性信息而造成伤害。这在非洲等地区尤其具有挑战性，因为这些地区缺乏用于验证的计量数据。在这项研究中，我们将展示如何校准合奏同样可能的降雨量可以用来推断遥感降雨量估计的不确定性，并随后在干旱评估。我们说明的方法，通过天气指数保险（WII）在赞比亚的案例研究。与补偿已证实的农业损失的传统保险不同，WII在天气指数被破坏的情况下进行赔付。由于遥感降雨量被用于将WII计划推广到大量农民，因此必须确保被保险的指数能够熟练地反映当地环境条件。在我们的研究中，我们驱动一个陆面模型与降雨合奏，以展示如何聚集的降雨量估计在空间和时间上的结果与土壤水分更清晰的联系，从而更真实地代表农业干旱。虽然我们的研究侧重于农业保险，但应用设计的方法原则在非洲和其他地方广泛适用。
Remotely sensed rainfall is increasingly being used to manage climate-related risk in gauge sparse regions. Applications based on such data must make maximal use of the skill of the methodology in order to avoid doing harm by providing misleading information. This is especially challenging in regions, such as Africa, which lack gauge data for validation. In this study, we show how calibrated ensembles of equally likely rainfall can be used to infer uncertainty in remotely sensed rainfall estimates, and subsequently in assessment of drought. We illustrate the methodology through a case study of weather index insurance (WII) in Zambia. Unlike traditional insurance, which compensates proven agricultural losses, WII pays out in the event that a weather index is breached. As remotely sensed rainfall is used to extend WII schemes to large numbers of farmers, it is crucial to ensure that the indices being insured are skillful representations of local environmental conditions. In our study we drive a land surface model with rainfall ensembles, in order to demonstrate how aggregation of rainfall estimates in space and time results in a clearer link with soil moisture, and hence a truer representation of agricultural drought. Although our study focuses on agricultural insurance, the methodological principles for application design are widely applicable in Africa and elsewhere.