Abstract
In this paper standardized precipitation index (SPI) is used to assess meteorological drought for all 30 districts covering 10 agro-climatic zones in an eastern Indian state, Odisha. Monthly rainfall data of 115 years (1901-2015) for all 30 districts of Odisha are analyzed using SPI on 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12-month timescale. These timescales reflect the impact of drought on the availability of different water resources. Results indicate that in all the agro-climatic zones of Odisha, mild drought events have the highest frequencies of occurrence followed by moderate drought events for different timescales. Severe and extreme drought frequencies are comparatively lesser than mild and moderate drought frequencies. SPI analysis shows that 32-46 years are affected by mild drought, 4-16 years affected by moderate drought, 1-9 years are affected by severe drought and 1-5 years are affected by extreme drought during study period of 115 years in different agro-climatic zones of Odisha. It is observed 50.3% areas in the state are affected by drought in June out of which chances of occurrence of mild drought is maximum (28.7%). In the months of July, August and September, 51.7, 48.5 and 46.1% areas are affected by droughts. On average 49.15% areas of the entire state is affected by drought of various intensities out of which the share of mild, moderate, severe and extreme drought is 28.38, 13.28, 5.06 and 2.43%, respectively.
Highlights
Drought is a natural hazard which is caused due to low precipitation than the normal
Vicente-Serrano et al (2010) proposed Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) which is based on precipitation and temperature data and has the advantage of combining a multi-scalar character with the capacity to include the effects of temperature variability on drought assessment
The result shows that the majority of drought events fall under mild drought (73%) and only 6% are under the category of severe drought for the north western plateau
Summary
Drought is a natural hazard which is caused due to low precipitation than the normal. Drought indices are used to monitor and assess severity of drought for effective crop and water resources planning. They are helpful to study the impact of climate change and its variability and various anomalies study related to climate change (Wilhite et al, 2000; Tsakiris et al, 2007). As reported by Buttafuoco et al (2015) some important indices include the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI; Palmer, 1965), the Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI; Van Rooy, 1965), the Rainfall deciles (Gibbs and Maher, 1967), the Crop Moisture Index (CMI; Palmer, 1968), the Bhalme and Mooley Drought Index (BMDI; Bhalme and Mooley, 1980), the Surface Water Supply Index (SWSI; Shafer and Dezman, 1982), the National Rainfall Index (RI; Gommes and Petrassi, 1994) and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI; McKee et al, 1993). As reported by Buttafuoco et al (2015); Guttman (1998) compared the SPI with PDSI and concluded that the SPI has statistical consistency advantages and can describe both short-term and long-term drought impacts through different time scales of precipitation anomalies
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