Web address: https://www.arc.agric.za/arc-iscw/Pages/News-Articles.aspx 

UMLINDI report is a monthly report on drought conditions in South Africa. Prepared by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC)

Web address: http://www.dwa.gov.za/niwis2/

The NIWIS is maintained and hosted by the Department of Water Human, Settlement and Sanitation. This website provides valuable information on water resources in South Africa.

Web address: https://greenbook.co.za/

The green book website developed by the CSIR and other organisations as a valuable tool to obtain a snapshot of drought risk and other risks to municipal level. It also provides future projections under climate change and population change projections but it is not a dynamic tool available for real time drought monitoring. Its real value is in the information available per municipality and in future projected changes in risk profiles.

Web address: http://www.fao.org/aquastat/en/

This information tools offers the following:

1. Standardised data and information to measure progress and to substantiate decisions

2. Tools to generate own analysis and conclusions

3. Capacity development to improve understanding and monitoring of water resources, water use, and irrigation management

Data is available globally and South African data is available down to micro-scale for some data sets. Data, river basin profiles, regional analysis, maps, tables, spatial data, guidelines and other tools are available on

1. Water resources; internal and transboundary

2. Water use by sector, source and wastewater

3. Irrigation locations, area, typology, technology, crops

4. Dam locations, height, capacity and surface area

5. Water related organisations, policies and legislation

Web Address: https://www.wri.org/aqueduct

Aqueduct provide two sets of tools, which can be used globally. These are the:

1. Aqueduct water risk tool that maps and analyses current and future water risks across locations. The water risk tool provides excellent information at country and catchment level about water stress, water depletion, interannual variability, seasonal variability, groundwater table changes, riverine flood risks, coastal flood risks, drought risk, untreated connected wastewater, coastal eutrophication potential, drinking water and sanitation.

2. Aqueduct country rankings, which compare national and sub-national water risks. The overall score for SA is 2.89 meaning medium to high water stress score with the agricultural sector as 3.16, domestic water at 2.43 and industrial water at 2.55. Score between 2 and 3 indicates medium to high water stress and score >3 indicate high water stress.

3. Also of great value is the projection tool of aquaduct where projection up to 2040 are available under 3 scenarios for water stress, seasonal variability, water supply and water demand.

Web address: https://fews.net/

The primary objective of FEWSNET is to monitor food security ofr different regions in the world. Various tools and projects available on the FEWSNET web page are useful for drought monitoring in the region and in SA. FEWSNET provides data and interactive maps on agro-climatology, livelihoods, markets and trades, nutrition, food security and weather and climate data. The website also provides useful links to NOAA and USGS, which have useful tools for drought monitoring.

An important link with various tools and products with spatially visible results on weather and climate data as well as various agricultural remotely sensed indicators is available at https://earlywarning.usgs.gov/fews/search,

Web address: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/international/

Wide range of weather and climate forecasting products are available for all regions and countries in the world.

Web address: https://clim-engine.appspot.com/climateEngine

Allows users to make maps of different climate features

Web address: https://www.drought.gov/gdm/

Web address: https://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/resources/world-water-and-climate-atlas/

An interactive service is available from which meteorological and climate data as well as drought indicators can be downloaded. The data can be downloaded for specific sites.

Web address: https://www.sentinel-hub.com/

This is a very useful site for generating real time and historical maps base on images from a complete archive of Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3, archives of Landsat 5,7 and 8, Envisat, Merit, Proba-V and GIBS products; All open source and free to use. Various layers are available. Information for drought management such as soil moisture, NDVI, PASG, VCI and water status are daily updated. Subscription at a very reasonable price is available for commercial use.

Web address: https://map.drought.gov.au/

The Australian drought map is a best-case example of drought monitoring. Much of the remotely sensed information required for drought management – even for SA - is available on the Australian drought map.