Abstract
Drought indices are widely used for monitoring the drought condition. The study is aimed to estimate the performance of composite indices for monitoring the severity condition of drought in Chengalpattu District, Tamilnadu, India. Indices such as Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Decile Indicator (DI), Effective Drought Index (EDI), Percent of Normal Indicator (PNI) and Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI) were evaluated for monitoring the condition of drought. These indices were calculated with the help of 30 years’ rainfall data from 1989 to 2018. Rainfall plays a prominent role in the identification and monitoring of drought condition, prevailing in a region. The drought condition was categorized from extremely dry to extremely wet based on the values computed by different indices. Based on the results, the most frequent category of SPI was below normal to moderately dry condition and that of PNI was moderate drought condition. The deciles indicated 1 to 3 which shows a much below normal precipitation, the frequent category of EDI was moderate to severely dry and RAI indicated extreme to severely dry condition. By the evaluation of different meteorological indices, the drought is monitored and it is evident that the selected region is under moderate to severe drought condition.
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