Drought Monitoring Based on Predicted SPI Using Fuzzy Controller System

Abstract

Drought monitoring is one of the most difficult steps required for optimal planning it must be diligently calculated to ensure success in future plans. In this study, a fuzzy logic control system was developed to monitor drought in the long term based on the values of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI-12) and several climate variables. The system applied meteorological data obtained from the meteorological station of the city of Mosul northwest of Iraq and showed that the predicted data confirms the observed data. To verify this conformity further, the accuracy of the prediction and the errors were calculated to test the validity of this system in drought monitoring and the performance efficiency of the system was found to be equal to 82.3%. The system showed high flexibility and capability to represent several different scenarios because of its wide range in designing and selecting Membership Functions and the number of data variables that can be used as its input. Based on the output data and the accuracy of the operation of the system, this system can be recommended to serve as an effective tool for long-term drought monitoring to develop optimal future plans in environmental and agricultural fields in the study area.