Abstract
Drought in South Asia affect food and water security and pose challenges for millions of people. For policy-making, planning, and management of water resources at sub-basin or administrative levels, high-resolution datasets of precipitation and air temperature are required in near-real time. We develop a high-resolution (0.05°) bias-corrected precipitation and temperature data that can be used to monitor near real-time drought conditions over South Asia. Moreover, the dataset can be used to monitor climatic extremes (heat and cold waves, dry and wet anomalies) in South Asia. A distribution mapping method was applied to correct bias in precipitation and air temperature, which performed well compared to the other bias correction method based on linear scaling. Bias-corrected precipitation and temperature data were used to estimate Standardized precipitation index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to assess the historical and current drought conditions in South Asia. We evaluated drought severity and extent against the satellite-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) anomalies and satellite-driven Drought Severity Index (DSI) at 0.05°. The bias-corrected high-resolution data can effectively capture observed drought conditions as shown by the satellite-based drought estimates. High resolution near real-time dataset can provide valuable information for decision-making at district and sub-basin levels.
Highlights
Background & SummaryDrought is one of the most complex natural disasters, which is often difficult to identify, predict, and mitigate
We found that areal extents of droughts from 4-month Standardized precipitation index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) estimated using the corrected CHIRPS-Precipitation and Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS)-Temperature were largely similar
We evaluated high-resolution SPI and SPEI estimated from the bias-corrected CHIRPS-Precipitation and GEFS-Temperature against satellite-based Drought Severity Index (DSI) at 0.05° for the 2002 monsoon season
Summary
Background & SummaryDrought is one of the most complex natural disasters, which is often difficult to identify, (including the start, end, intensity, and extent), predict, and mitigate. A high-resolution near real-time precipitation and air temperature (maximum and minimum) dataset is required for drought monitoring at the district and sub-basin levels in South Asia. After the bias correction of CHIRPS-Precipitation and GEFS-Temperature at 0.05°, we estimated SPI and SPEI for drought assessment and monitoring.
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