Applicability of established drought index in Huang-Huai-Hai region based on actual evapotranspiration.

Abstract

Based on the modeled products of actual evapotranspiration with NOAH land surface model, the temporal and spatial variations of actual evapotranspiration were analyzed for the Huang-Huai-Hai region in 2002-2010. In the meantime, the agricultural drought index, namely, drought severity index (DSI) was constructed, incorporated with products of MOD17 potential evapotranspiration and MOD13 NDVI. Furthermore, the applicability of established DSI in this region in the whole year of 2002 was investigated based on the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI), the yield reduction rate of winter wheat, and drought severity data. The results showed that the annual average actual evapotranspiration within the survey region increased from the northwest to the southeast, with the maximum of 800-900 mm in the southeast and the minimum less than 300 mm in the northwest. The DSI and PDSI had positive correlation (R2=0.61) and high concordance in change trend. They all got the low point (-0.61 and -1.33) in 2002 and reached the peak (0.81 and 0.92) in 2003. The correlation between DSI and yield reduction rate of winter wheat (R2=0.43) was more significant than that between PDSI and yield reduction rate of winter wheat (R2=0.06). So, the DSI reflected a high spatial resolution of drought pattern and could reflect the region agricultural drought severity and intensity more accurately.