Help Of DMAP V1.0
Drought Monitor And Prediction

"Drought Monitor And Prediction" is used in:
1- Estimation of meteorological drought indices based on AgMERRA precipitation data and station-observed precipitation data
2- Predictive value of Keetch-Byram Drought Index for cereal yields in a semi-arid environment
3- Rainfed wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yield prediction using economical, meteorological, and drought indicators through pooled panel data and statistical downscaling
4- Prediction of meteorological drought in arid and semi-arid regions using PDSI and SDSM: a case study in Fars Province, Iran

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How can we run DMAP V1.0 (Drought Monitor And Prediction)?

The DMAP (Drought Monitor And Prediction) software is a comprehensive tool that can calculate 18 drought indices in three different drought types, namely meteorological drought (SPI, PN, DI, RAI, RDI, ZSI, CZI, MCZI, EDI, KBDI, PDSI, PHDI, SPEI), agricultural drought (ETDI, SMDI, ARI), and hydrological drought (SWSI and SDI). For running this software you can follow these steps one by one.

Step1: Input data in Drought Monitor And Prediction

The DMAP tool has 4 tabs, that in this version the point option is active, the region ability will active in the next version (Fig. 1). For starting the software, firstly select the first tab, “Input Excel File” (Fig.2 No. 1). If you want to browse a text file, first you should assign your delimiter (such a space, comma, semicolon, etc.) (Fig.2 No. 2), if you want to browse an excel file it doesn’t need to assign a delimiter. Then you can press “Open File” (Fig.2 No. 3). In Fig.2 No. 4, you can see the open window for selecting the desirable input file. In the open window, you select your file easily, and then click “Open” button.

Fig 1. The main screen of DMAP tool with the main tabs

Fig 2. The input excel file tap and the details

According to the Fig. 3 No. 1, you can see all the sheets that are available in your excel file, so select the proper sheet. In this example we select “Mashhad” sheet that it has several important weather data of Mashhad synoptic station. If your excel file sheet has header of columns so please select the “first Row is header” option (Fig. 3 No. 2), also in “Input Timing” you can select time scale of the input file. In the presented example here, the input data are in daily sale, so we check “Daily” (Fig. 3 No. 3).

Fig 3. Browse your input file and select your sheet

After the desirable sheet was selected then it is the turn of assignments of weather variables. Therefore, as presented in Fig. 4 No.1, you can apply the format of your time scale. If your time data have a format like the 1986, then you should select “YYYY” in the combo box (Fig. 4). In this example for time, there are just the Julian years for each day of year.

Fig 4. Select the format of time.

Then you should assign the header of each column. Attention please, as you see in Fig. 5, in this example the first column was assigned to the “Date”, but there is not any special order for the columns, and this is actually one of the best advantage of the DMAP tool. Also, as presented in Fig.6 assign all the variables, if one or more columns are not necessary to assign, you should remain them with any header.

Fig 5. Assign the variables

As you see in Fig. 6, in this sample input file the second column not necessary for assignment, so the header is “None“(Fig. 6 No. 1) and it doesn’t consider for calculation drought indices. In this sample the first column is “Date”, and others are respectively equal to “None”, “Tmax”, “Rain”, and “T”, that Tmax refers to maximum temperature, Rain for the amount of precipitation, and T refers to mean of temperature. Finally, press the “Load Data” button (Fig. 6 No. 2). Then you will face to a small window “Data loaded”, click it and go to the next step (Fig. 7).

Fig 6. Assign all the variables, without any specific order

Fig 7. Click the “Data Loaded” button

Step2: Drought Indices

In this step please click on the “Drought Indices” tab in the Tab menu. The first panel in this screen is related to the “Calculator” setting. According to the Fig. 8, you can see a small panel that its name is “Timing”. In this panel you can set the start (Fig. 8) and the end (Fig. 9) years.

Fig 8. Select the start year in the “Timing” panel

Fig 9. Select the end year in the “Timing” panel

Then you can select your desirable index from the “Indices” panel, then the “Frequency” panel will highlighted for selecting. According to the selected index in “Indices” panel, the “Frequency” panel has different type. In this example, since the “SPI” index (Fig. 10 No. 1) was selected so the “Frequency” panel has three types, namely Yearly, Seasonally, and Monthly. As you see in Fig. 10, we selected “Yearly” type for calculation of SPI output (Fig. 10 No. 2).

Fig 10. Select the end year in the “Timing” panel

Fig 11. Generate value of the selected index

By clicking “OK” button, the index’s value was calculated if the user wants to see the values, by clicking the “Send to table” button (Fig. 12 No. 1), the user can see the values of selected drought index in the “Output Data” table (Fig. 12 No. 2). If the user wants to export the outputs of the index, he/she can click on the “Export To Excel” button that it is located in the right corner of the screen (Fig. 12 No. 3). By clicking this button, a browse window will open to select a name for the excel output file in a wanted path (Fig. 13). When the file successfully saved, the user can see a small dialog box that will show a message with this content “The file was saved successfully” (Fig. 14).

Fig 12. Send the output of selected index to the table

Fig 13. Select a name and path for the selected index’s outputs in an excel file

Fig 14. Select a name and path for the selected index’s outputs in an excel file

If you want to plot the values of calculated index, you can set some characteristics of the plot settings. You can do this settings in the “Plots” panel as shown in Fig. 15 No.1. In the “Tool” option, first the user can select desirable domain for start and end year. In “Chart Options”, you can type a proper title (Fig. 15 No.2, in this sample we have typed “SPI Mashhad”) for your graph and also if you want your graph has horizontal line in the background you can click the “H-Line” option (Fig. 15 No.3).

Fig 15. Assign some characteristics for Setting of the plot

You have two options for selecting the color of the graph, namely “Grayscale” and “Color plot”. If you don’t select other colors you can just click “Grayscale” option, otherwise click on the combo box, then you can see lots of different colors and as well you can select one of them for the graph (Fig. 16). At last, you can choose your “type of plot” (Fig. 16 No. 1). There are three options, namely “BoxPlot”, “Linear”, and “Columnar” (Fig. 16 No. 1). Finally, after selecting the type of graph you can click on the “Plot” button, and observe the selected graph. The selected graph in this example is “Linear”, so in Fig.17 you can see it, according to this graph since the typed titled was “SPI Mashhad”, so in the presented graph you can see this title. If you want to change it you can easily do it by typing another one in the “Chart Option” panel.

Fig 16. Select the proper color and title for the plot

Fig 17. Plot the desirable graph for the output of index

In Fig. 18 and Fig. 19, we plotted the yearly boxplot of SPI values, and the yearly columnar plot of SPI, respectively by clicking the “Boxplot” and “Columnar” options.

Fig 18. The yearly Boxplot for the output of SPI

Fig 19. The columnar plot for the yearly output of SPI

Step 3:Calculate Severity and Duration

One of the most important characteristic that Agrimetsoft was considered in the DMAP (Drought Monitor and Prediction) software, is calculating severity and duration of drought event. In Fig. 20 and in the right side of screen, you can see a panel with the name of “Severity”. In this panel for calculating the severity and duration of drought in a specific region, first of all you should determine the range of the desirable drought, for example in SPI the specific border of drought classification is less than -0.99. This border can easily find for every index according to the origin paper that was published for each index. You can select one of the two options, namely “More than” or “Less than”. Fig. 21 presented the severity and durations of drought index. In this sample, we have calculated SPI, so the label of “Y” axe is “SPI”. Also, as you can see in Fig. 21at the top the graph, there is a table that.

Fig 20. The severity panel for assign border

Fig 21. The values of severity and duration

Fig 22. The columnar plot for the yearly output of SPI

Fig 23. The Box plot for the seasonally output of SPI

Tips and points

1. In the Drought Monitor And Prediction (DMAP) software tool V1.0, the input files can have different format of data, including xls, xlsx, txt, and csv, an in the Drought Monitor And Prediction software tool V1.1 beside the mentioned formats, the NetCDF (nc and nc4) as well supported. Also, there is a tool in the V1.1 which can extract data for a point and an area from a NetCDF file; if you select a region, you should calculate the mean value of the region.
2. In the DMAP (Drought Monitor And Prediction) V.1.1, there is an option which can convert the unit of data of NetCDF files, for example, consider the models of CMIP5, the precipitation values are in flux so that this tool can convert flux value to mm value.
3. The timescale of input data can be in daily, monthly and yearly. Be careful; if you enter yearly data to the software, then you can't compute the value of drought index on a monthly scale.
4. Some of the indices such as KBDI and EDI need to daily data, if you use monthly and yearly data as input to the Drought Monitor And Prediction tool V1.1, so you can't obtain the value of these indices, and the Drought Monitor And Prediction software (DMAP) tool V1.1 can't calculate the amount of them, and the calculation icon would be deactivated.
5. The Drought monitor software tool V1.1 can compute 19 drought indices in different types of drought, including meteorological drought, agricultural drought, and hydrological drought. The indices have different types.
6. You can enter five values as input data into the Drought monitor software tool V1.1. For calculating of each index, we should consider the original relation and equation of the index which has one or more input data of the five variables. The Drought monitor software tool V1.1 is an intelligence tool, since when a user wants to evaluate a drought index, then the index which relevant to the input data variables would be active.
7. In the first tab, the variables are entered to the Drought monitor software tool V1.1 are as a time series (daily, monthly, and yearly). But by considering the kind of drought index, some of the other inputs maybe need to enter in the second tab (additional section), for example in the PDSI drought index; we need to enter geographical latitude, which during the calculation drought index, the user should enter them as a requested input variable.
8. Depend on the type of drought index; you can calculate drought index at various time scale, including daily, monthly, yearly, and moving average.
9. The remarkable point is that if you choose a monthly scale, the "Moving Average" Combo box would be activated, and the moving average of one month is equal to the monthly scale of the selected index.
10. The value of evapotranspiration can be calculated through three methods, including ThornThwaite and enter the amount of evapotranspiration from input data, which selection of these three methods will be made through the active combo box (that it is selected after the selection of index).
11. For computing the SPEI, there are two icons, one of them is related to the "SPEI" which represents that the amount of SPEI is calculated by computing evapotranspiration via ThornThwaite and Hamon methods, also the other is "SPEI1 that related to the calculation of SPEI by the amount of the evapotranspiration which enters by the user.
12. For calculation of PDSI and if you apply the amount of computed evapotranspiration, then you need to fill three items, including Surface Soil water in mm(usually is 25mm), Available Water Capacity (AWC) in mm, and Latitude in decimal number.
13. For calculation SPEI and with using the amount of computed evapotranspiration, the user should write the value of Latitude in decimal number.
14. For calculating the KBDI, we need to write the value of Field Capacity (FC) in mm.
15. For calculating the RDI, the user can select the check-box of "Standardized," which this icon will present the Standardized RDI.
16. In the Drought Monitor And Prediction software (DMAP) tool, there is a panel for plotting graphs. There are three various kinds of graphs, namely BoxPlot, Linear, and columnar. Also, you can select every color that you want for your graph. There are two other options with names of H-Line and Grayscale that H-Line adds the horizontal line on the graph and Grayscale creates gray color for your graph.

Help Of DMAP V1.1
Drought Monitor And Prediction

How can we run DMAP V1.1 (Drought Monitor And Prediction)?

The DMAP V1.1 (Drought Monitor And Prediction) software is same as Version 1.0 but in this version you can input the data as NetCDF database, so, in this help we describe the NetCDF API. The DMAP (Drought Monitor And Prediction) software is a comprehensive tool that can run 18 drought indices in three different drought types, namely meteorological drought (SPI, PN, DI, RAI, RDI, ZSI, CZI, MCZI, EDI, KBDI, PDSI, PHDI, SPEI), agricultural drought (ETDI, SMDI, ARI), and hydrological drought (SWSI and SDI). For running this software you can follow these steps one by one. In this help, firatly, we describe the API for load data from NetCDF files then you can follow Fig.4 in version 1.0.

How Can We Use NetCDF API?

In this version of DMAP, when user open nc or nc4 files, will show the NetCDF API. The user can open one file to extract desirable region. Many users need to run several files simultaneously. Therefore, Agrimetsoft has developed the API that it can merge and extract many files at the same time. By following these steps, all users can easily extract their data from NetCDF files. And send the data to DMAP.

Stage 1: Open nc files and show up the API

The best advantage of NetCDF API is open many files and extract them, simultaneously for saving time of users. If the user needs to load several files and extracts them as well, he/she can browse and select every file that he/she wants. This can do with 3 steps that has been shown in (Fig. 1). As you see in the Fig. 1, the user can select many files from the files. In this example four files of MIROC5 was selected. This API can merge “Unlimited Dimension” of all files that usually it is time dimension.

Fig 1 load NetCDF API

Stage 2: Using the API

In (Fig. 2, No.1), you can see all files that you selected and you can expand to get information about dimension of files. In (Fig. 2, No.2), you can see the unlimited dimension in all files and the result of merged. This is the limitation of numbers that you can enter for grid numbers in unlimited dimension. In (Fig. 2, No.3), you should enter the name of variable that you want to extract then click on “Load”.

Fig 2 See the API

In the “NetCDF API”, you can see an important tip for merge NetCDF files, namely: “Merge all files”: Start from 1 To 12410” (Fig. 3, No.1). Due to the selected files in this example are related to the “Precipitation” of MIROC5 from 2006 up to 2039 (12410 days) so, all these files merge in this panel. In (Fig. 3, No.2), you should enter the grid numbers. In unlimited dimension (usually time dimension), you should enter the start grid number that you want and number of grid that you want. If you want select all data you should enter 1 and 12410(from and numbers). If you want extract first year, you should enter 1 and 365. If you want extract second year, you should enter 366 and 365. For calculation of other grid numbers (Latitude and Longitude), you can use Grid Number Calculator or watch the videos in our channel in YouTube or you can contact to kolsoomi57@gmail.com for creating an excel file for you to simplifying. Then click on "Extract".

Fig 3 The “Merge all files” sentence in the “Option of Files”

Fig. 4 The “Data” panel with Average of data

Help Of DMAP V2.0
Drought Monitor And Prediction

How can we run DMAP V2.0 (Drought Monitor And Prediction)?

By this tool, you can calculate 18 drought indices for a list of stations. Data of stations can input as excel files(text or csv) or NetCDF files. You should select one of two of these methods for inputting the data. When you are using the Input Data as NetCDF format so you can extract data for a region. The tool will consider every cell as a station. The list of cell-stations substitutes instead of the old list if exists.

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I- Please follow these steps to input the data as excel files and calculate the index.

1. Visit "Input Excel File" tab and open the list of stations and load the lat/lon. If you want to use one of the below indexes so you should enter the below values for each station.


• PDSI --> Input the available moisture capacity in the Surface layer of Soil(SS) and AWC
• KBDI --> Input Field Capacity
• SPEI1 --> similar PDSI

You can consider the SS values as 25mm



2. Select the tab of the variable that you need. By input every variable, one or several indexes will be calculatable.


• Rainfall --> SPI, CZI, ZSI, EDI(if your data is daily), PN, DI, RAI, MCZI
• Rainfall and Tave --> PDSI, PHDI, SPEI1(In this indexes calculate PET by Tave)
• Rainfall and Tmax --> KBDI. Your data(Rainfall, Tmax) should be in daily
• Rainfall and PET --> SPEI, PHDI, RDI, ARI, PDSI
• Rainfall and AET --> ETDI
• Soil Moisture --> SMDI
• Stream Flow --> SWSI, SDI


3. Select your file and the sheet then you can devote the column header, manually or by click on "Auto-Fill Col-Head". If you use this button so consider the following tips:


• The name of stations in the list should be same as in the first row of your data
• After you click on "Auto-Fill Col-Head" check the selection of all column header
• Select the "Date" column manually.

When the loading is complete then you can calculate the index in "Drought Indices" tab same as the first version. Click on the "Version 1.0" button in the top.

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II- Please follow these steps to input the data as NetCDF files and calculate the index.

1. Visit the "Input NetCDF File" tab, select your NetCDF files, and check the name of variables and unit and calendar. If you want you can view the content of NetCDF by "View Database".
2. If you have stations on the list you can use the first RadioButton. Otherwise, you should input the stations by file in the first tab or you can enter it manually in every one of the tables. If you want to use the "Use a Region" RadioButton so you can enter the start/end of lat/lon of your region. The tool will create a station list by using each cell as one station.
3. Now you should save the data. When you save it, if you loaded the variable in the first tab It will be replaced. For saving, you should select the name of the variable and the unit converter. If you don't need to convert so please select Multiply by 1.

When the loading is complete then you can calculate the index in "Drought Indices" tab same as the first version. Click on the "Version 1.0" button in the top.

DMAP V2.0

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