Dynamics of meteorological and hydrological droughts in the Neman river basin

Abstract

The analysis of drought dynamics in the Neman river basin allows an assessment of extreme regional climate changes. Meteorological and hydrological warm period droughts were analyzed in this study. Meteorological droughts were identified using the standardized precipitation index, and hydrological droughts using the streamflow drought index. The whole river basin was analyzed over the period from 1961 to 2010. Precipitation data from Vilnius meteorological station (from 1887) and discharge data from Smalininkai (Neman) hydrological station (from 1811) were used for an evaluation of meteorological and hydrological drought recurrence over a long-term period. It was found that the total area dryness has decreased over the last 50 years. A statistically significant increase in standardized precipitation index values was observed in some river sub-basins. An analysis of drought recurrence dynamics showed that there was no indication that the number of dangerous drought was increased. It was determined that the standardized precipitation index cannot successfully identify the hydrological summer droughts in an area where the spring snowmelt forms a large part of the annual flow. In particular, the weak relationship between the indices was recorded in the first half of the summer, when a large part of the river runoff depends on accumulated water during the spring thaw.