| dc.description.abstract | Drought is a natural local, regional or global phenomenon that is caused by the lack of precipitation over a period. Drought in agriculture is ―shortage of water in the root zone, resulting in decreased crop yield‖ (Salekdeh et al., 2009). In Uganda, climate change has been determined to contribute a major threat to agricultural production and productivity (Mwaura & Okoboi, 2014). Agriculture is a big contributor to the national economy and the development of Uganda. It provides about 20% of the gross domestic product (GDP), 48% to export earnings and employs about 73% of the population (Epule et al., 2017). The most immediate consequence of drought is a fall in crop production, due to inadequate and poorly distributed rainfall (NEMA 2010). Despite the known effect of drought hazard, limited studies have been done to assess the spatial and temporal impact of drought events on regional crops grown mostly in particular regions in Uganda. The objective of the research was to investigate the impact of drought events on the productivity of major regional crops in Uganda. The study was conducted in selected districts in the north, central and western regions that represented areas growing cassava, coffee and bananas respectively. The main datasets used in the study-included precipitation to derive drought severity, frequency and spatial variation. Precipitation data was acquired from CHIRPS. While production yield datasets were acquired from FAOSTAT and used to derive yield index. DrinC software was used for generating drought indices based on Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and ArcGIS 10.6, was used for mapping spatial patterns of Drought. Crop yield index was generated based on Standardized Variable of Crop Yield (SVCY). Microsoft excel was used for summarizing drought and crop yield index. Results showed 1980, 1983, 1985, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1999 as drought years. Western, east and northeast were most devastated with drought events compared to other regions in Uganda. Between 1980-1990, severe drought events caused severe to extreme loss of banana yield in western Uganda. In the same period, there was a severe loss of coffee in central Uganda. Between 2011-2017, the severe drought in northern Uganda resulted to severe loss of cassava yield. Despite analysis of effect of drought on crop yield, it was discovered that wet conditions had an effect on banana and cassava production. | en_US |
