Spatial Analysis of Health Risk of Droughts in US Counties for 2010-2014
and 2015-2019
Abstract
Drought is probably the most complex among natural hazards to assess its
effects. While most drought indicators and risk assessments are
developed around agricultural or water shortages effects of drought, its
effect on human health is highly understudied because of its unclear and
complicated path towards physical and mental health effects. This study
assesses the health risk of the latest decadal drought over the US
counties by spatially superimposing several proxy variables of counties’
health vulnerabilities over their drought levels. We have used different
variations of Local Moran’s I statistics to assess the spatial
distribution of drought-vulnerability in two five-year study periods
(2010-2014 and 2015-2019) and their differences. Our results show large
clusters of significant risk increase in the west due to increases in
both vulnerability and hazard indicators in the second study period.
Since the used vulnerability variables include indicators of
agriculture, drinking water, and socioeconomic prosperities, the results
of this study can help researchers and policymakers in these areas to
distinguish areas in need of higher attention for interdisciplinary
study and planning in national or regional scales.