Land use analysis shows area north of Santiago receiving almost no water.
Citizens of central Chile are accustomed to long spells of dry weather. But the past decade has brought an extreme drought that is remarkable even for a region with a semi-arid Mediterranean climate.
Central Chile, where most Chileans live, has received 30 percent less rainfall than normal over the past decade, a situation that scientists are referring to as “megadrought.” With rainfall deficits of 80 to 90 percent, 2019 has been particularly dry.
Landscapes that would normally be lush and green have withered. The map above depicts the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a measure of the health and greenness of vegetation based on how much red and near-infrared light it reflects. Healthy vegetation with lots of chlorophyll reflects more near-infrared light and less visible light. The NDVI anomaly map above is based on data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite between September 5 and November 5, 2019.
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Image via NASA Earth Observatory
