Global Drought Map — visualizing global droughts with DuckDB + Parquet + H3

5 hours ago (globaldroughtmap.com)

Global Drought Map is a fully serverless web application that visualizes global drought indicators (SPI, SPEI etc.) from open datasets like CHIRPS and ERA5.

All computations run client-side using DuckDB compiled to WebAssembly (WASM) — querying Parquet files directly in the browser. Spatial aggregation and indexing are handled with H3 hexagons, enabling efficient global-scale visualization without a backend database or API.

Key features: • Zero backend: everything runs in the browser • Query and filter massive Parquet files with DuckDB (WASM) • Spatial joins and aggregations via H3 • Drought indicators computed from open EO and reanalysis data • Built for transparency, reproducibility, and open data access