Investigation of the Variability of Dry / Wet Meteorological conditions using the SPEI / SPI Index in the Selo Watershed, Period 1981-2020.

Abstract

The significant impact of climate change is high variability in rainfall and an increase in extreme rainfall events. The impacts resulted in severe dry/wet conditions. Severe dry conditions can lead to crop failure due to lack of water availability, while severe wet conditions can indicate flooding. This paper aims to investigate the variability of dry/wet meteorological conditions in the Selo watershed. The investigation was carried out using the SPEI and SPI. The results show that wet/dry conditions do not have a clear pattern variability in the long term. Seasonal wet/dry conditions show a changing trend towards wetter conditions in all seasons. Spatially, the changes occur throughout the study area, with the most significant changes occurring in the upstream and downstream parts of the watershed. In the last two decades, wet conditions are more dominant to replace dry conditions that were more prominent in the previous two decades. Other analysis results conclude that there is no influence of air temperature in creating wet/dry conditions in the Selo watershed area. So that the characteristics of wet/dry conditions are very useful for considering the selection of agricultural adaptation strategies in dealing with variability and climate change in the Selo watershed area.