Abstract
Recent drought events in India are found to affect a major portion of Ganga River basin. Considering the importance of the basin in terms of residing population and contribution to agricultural sector, a rigorous understanding of agricultural droughts is crucial for ensuring food security and economic equilibrium in the country. The present study investigates the response of soil moisture to spatiotemporal pattern in meteorological variables through identifying trends in rainfall, mean temperature and soil moisture over Ganga River basin. Long-term trends in hydrologic and climatic annual time series are analyzed using Mann-Kendall test for the period 1948–2015. In the results, significant negative trend is observed in annual soil moisture over northwest and southwest region of the basin which are attributable to significant negative trend in rainfall and significant increasing trend in temperature in the respective regions. Significant increasing trend is also observed in area affected with meteorological and agricultural drought with MK-Z value of 2.63 and 2.91, respectively. Severe soil moisture drought events in Ganga River basin are identified during 1950–1955, 1965–1966, 1979–1980, 1991–1993, 2001–2003, 2008–2009 and 2012–2015. Despite of increasing trend in soil moisture droughts, basin average NDVI is found to be following a positive trend highlighting improved vegetation health over the period. The contrasting behavior of vegetation may be attributable to the advancement in agricultural practices after green revolution and considerable shift in fresh water consumption for irrigation from surface water sources to groundwater.KeywordsSoil moistureDroughtsTrendSPISMDSGanga river basin
Published Version
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