About Pulsecast & Forecasting Methodology
Operationalizing NDMA published data and thresholds to project drought phase transitions weeks before official bulletins confirm them.
The Operational Bottleneck
Kenya's National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) collects comprehensive satellite and biophysical data across 23 Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) counties. However, monthly PDF bulletins report conditions that have already occurred. County drought coordinators face a manual burden every month: reading dense PDFs, translating technical indicators (VCI3M, SPI), judging priority, and making early-action decisions without advance lead time.
Pulsecast compresses "read → translate → judge → decide" into "open dashboard → see ranked, explained, sourced forecast → act," giving coordinators 4–6 weeks of lead time before an official phase transition occurs.
NDMA 5-Phase Classification System & VCI3M Thresholds
Pulsecast preserves the official county EW phase from each NDMA bulletin. Its VCI3M forecast bands use the bulletin's published vegetation-condition thresholds:
| Phase Name | VCI3M Threshold | Operational Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | VCI3M ≥ 35 | Vegetation conditions normal or above average. |
| Alert | 20 ≤ VCI3M < 35 | Early moisture deficit; watch stage for preparedness. |
| Alarm | 10 ≤ VCI3M < 20 | Moderate to severe vegetation stress; early action needed. |
| Emergency | VCI3M < 10 | Extreme drought conditions; emergency response active. |
| Recovery | Improving trajectory | Conditions returning toward normal baseline. |
Forecasting Model & Scientific Grounding
The forecasting engine utilizes a per-county autoregressive model (AR(2)) to project the 3-month Vegetation Condition Index (VCI3M) forward over a 4–6 week horizon, implementing the peer-reviewed methodology validated in:
Every forecast includes explicit confidence bands (90% interval), and priority scores are calculated deterministically as: