Academic Journal

Utilising machine learning classification models for meteorological drought monitoring and analysis

Bibliographic Details
Title: Utilising machine learning classification models for meteorological drought monitoring and analysis
Authors: Iqra Mumtaz, Rizwan Niaz, Zamama Sajid, Abdu Qaid Alameri, Zulfiqar Ali, Khaled A. Gepreel
Source: All Earth, Vol 37, Iss 1, Pp 1-21 (2025)
Publisher Information: Informa UK Limited, 2025.
Publication Year: 2025
Subject Terms: QE1-996.5, Physical geography, synthetic minority oversampling technique, Punjab, Machine learning, SPI, Geology, performance metrics, GB3-5030
Description: This study identifies drought events using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and applies four machine learning model Support Vector Machines (SVM), Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting (GB), and Logistic Regression for drought prediction. Meteorological data from 12 stations across Punjab, Pakistan, covering northern, eastern, and central regions were utilised. Independent variables included average temperature, specific humidity, soil moisture, and dew point. To address model-specific challenges, ridge regression was applied to mitigate multicollinearity in Logistic Regression, while SVM incorporated the Radial Basis Function (RBF) kernel and isolation forest to manage non-linearity and outliers. RF and GB were implemented without additional modifications. The Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) was used to handle class imbalance. Model performance was assessed using accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, specificity, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC-AUC). SVM demonstrated the highest predictive capability with an ROC-AUC of 0.8166, followed by Logistic Regression (0.8024), while RF and GB recorded values of 0.742 and 0.7422, respectively. These findings highlight the superior performance of SVM in drought prediction and emphasise the importance of model selection and data preprocessing in enhancing drought monitoring for improved water resource management and climate adaptation strategies.
Document Type: Article
Language: English
ISSN: 2766-9645
DOI: 10.1080/27669645.2025.2512696
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/90d6c6ccba704a959689f44482a38b48
Rights: CC BY
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....8e27fccf062ef2c2fc4be187c917e3d7
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
ISSN:27669645
DOI:10.1080/27669645.2025.2512696