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Last active August 29, 2015 14:03
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##Visualizing North Korea's Worst Drought in Decades

The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) is experiencing its worst drought in over a decade. According to reports, some areas have experienced 70 days without rain as well as the lowest rainfall levels since 1961. As food shortages are already a problem for North Korea, the damage that this drought will likely cause for harvests is cause for serious alarm.

We used satellite data to measure what areas are most impacted by the drought. We examined MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data to evaluate current vegetatation levels across the country. The map below shows the difference between vegetation levels on [DATE RANGE] and a baseline constructed from average vegetation levels for the past 5 years (2009-2013). Red areas have less vegetation than normal. Darker red shows significantly less vegetation. Green areas have higher levels of vegetation than average. Blank spots are the result of ground-obscuring clouds in the satellite imagery.

This drought map can be used to identify urban areas most vulnerable to food shortages right now, to plan irrigation and relief efforts, or to identify areas that are susceptable to widespread forest fires.

MAP GOES HERE
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