Prediction of meteorological drought and standardized precipitation index based on the random forest (RF), random tree (RT), and Gaussian process regression (GPR) models.

Agriculture, meteorological, and hydrological drought is a natural hazard which affects ecosystems in the central India of Maharashtra state. Due to limited historical data for drought monitoring and forecasting available in the central India of Maharashtra state, implementing machine learning (ML) algorithms could allow for the prediction of future drought events. In this paper, we have focused on the prediction accuracy of meteorological drought in the semi-arid region based on the standardized precipitation index (SPI) using the random forest (RF), random tree (RT), and Gaussian process regression (GPR-PUK kernel) models.