Characterisation of the dynamics of past droughts

Vitali Diaz*, Gerald A. Corzo Perez, Henny A.J. Van Lanen, Dimitri Solomatine, Emmanouil A. Varouchakis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)
29 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Drought is a complex natural phenomenon. The description of the way in which drought changes (moves) in space may help to acquire knowledge on its drivers and processes to improve its monitoring and prediction. This research presents the application of an approach to characterise the dynamics of drought. Tracks, severity, duration, as well as localisation (onset and end position), and rotation of droughts were calculated. Results of calculated droughts were compared with documented information. Data from the Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI) Global Drought Monitor was used to identify droughts in India as an example for the period 1901–2013. Results show regions where droughts with considerable coverage tend to occur. Paths, i.e. consecutive spatial tracks, of six of the most severe reported droughts were analysed. In all of them, areas overlap considerably over time, which suggest that drought remains in the same region for a period of time. Results of this research are being used to build a model to predict the spatial drought tracks, incl. India (https://www.researchgate.net/project/STAND-Spatio-Temporal-ANalysis-of-Drought).

Original languageEnglish
Article number134588
Number of pages22
JournalScience of the Total Environment
Volume718
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care
Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Keywords

  • Drought characterisation
  • Drought dynamics
  • Drought tracking
  • Spatio-temporal drought analysis

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