Abstract
The early and accurate detection of drought episodes is crucial for managing agricultural yield losses and planning adequate policy responses. This study aimed to evaluate the potential of two novel indices, static and dynamic plant water stress, for drought detection and yield prediction. The study was conducted in SW Spain (Córdoba province), covering a 13-year period (2001–2014). The calculation of static and dynamic drought indices was derived from previous ecohydrological work but using a probabilistic simulation of soil moisture content, based on a bucket-type soil water balance, and measured climate data. The results show that both indices satisfactorily detected drought periods occurring in 2005, 2006 and 2012. Both their frequency and length correlated well with annual precipitation, declining exponentially and increasing linearly, respectively. Static and dynamic drought stresses were shown to be highly sensitive to soil depth and annual precipitation, with a complex response, as stress can either increase or decrease as a function of soil depth, depending on the annual precipitation. Finally, the results show that both static and dynamic drought stresses outperform traditional indicators such as the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)-3 as predictors of crop yield, and the R2 values are around 0.70, compared to 0.40 for the latter. The results from this study highlight the potential of these new indicators for agricultural drought monitoring and management (e.g., as early warning systems, insurance schemes or water management tools).
Highlights
Drought is one of the main natural hazards affecting agricultural crop production and resulting in food insecurity [1,2]
The mean value of soil moisture is shown in bold, and the gray areas represent the 5 to 95% percentiles, calculated based on daily values of the 2001–2014 period. This figure clearly shows that during the summer dry period, soil moisture drops to a minimum and its variability is about half of that in the wet winter period
The variability rises sharply, as during some wet years, the soil water content is close to its maximum by October, and in other years, the soil moisture remains dry throughout the fall and winter
Summary
Drought is one of the main natural hazards affecting agricultural crop production and resulting in food insecurity [1,2]. Leng and Hall [4], analyzing global yield losses for different crops under global change, project that yield loss risk will increase in the future. Their predictions, using an ensemble of models, show that this risk grows nonlinearly with an increase in drought severity. In a study on historic crop yields in the US, Ortiz-Bobea et al [5] found an important effect of water stress, they point to heat stress as the primary climatic driver of future yield changes under climate change. Lesk et al [8] estimate a reduction in cereal production
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