Exploration of drought evolution using numerical simulations over the Xijiang (West River) basin in South China

Abstract

Summary The knowledge of drought evolution characteristics may aid the decision making process in mitigating drought impacts. This study uses a macro-scale hydrological model, Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model, to simulate terrestrial hydrological processes over the Xijiang (West River) basin in South China. Three drought indices, namely standardized precipitation index (SPI), standardized runoff index (SRI), and soil moisture anomaly index (SMAI), are employed to examine the spatio-temporal and evolution features of drought events. SPI, SRI and SMAI represent meteorological drought, hydrological drought and agricultural drought, respectively. The results reveal that the drought severity depicted by SPI and SRI is similar with increasing timescales; SRI is close to that of SPI in the wet season for the Liu River basin as the high-frequency precipitation is conserved more by runoff; the time lags appear between SPI and SRI due to the delay response of runoff to precipitation variability for the You River basin. The case study in 2010 spring drought further shows that the spatio-temporal evolutions are modulated by the basin-scale topography. There is more consistency between meteorological and hydrological droughts for the fan-like basin with a converged river network. For the west area of the Xijiang basin with the high elevation, the hydrological drought severity is less than meteorological drought during the developing stage. The recovery of hydrological and agricultural droughts is slower than that of meteorological drought for basins with a longer mainstream.