Response of Agricultural Drought to Meteorological Drought: A Case Study of the Winter Wheat above the Bengbu Sluice in the Huaihe River Basin, China

Chao Gao,Yi He,Cai Chen,Yanwei Sun,Tian Ruan,Gang Luo

doi:10.3390/w12102805

Chao Gao, Yi He + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/w12102805

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Journal: Water	Publication Date: Oct 10, 2020
Citations: 9	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Tyndall Centre, University of East Anglia, Ningbo University

Abstract

This study investigated the responses of winter wheat to drought for the above part of the Bengbu Sluice in the Huaihe River based on the daily scale dataset of 60 meteorological stations from 1961–2015. Crop water deficit index (CWDI) and relative moisture index (M) were used to examine the winter wheat drought and meteorological drought, respectively. We then analyzed the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of these two kinds of drought to calculate the time lag of winter wheat drought to meteorological drought, and finally discuss the relationship between the time lag of winter wheat drought to meteorological drought and the underlying surface geographical factors, and drew the following conclusions. (1) In terms of time scale, for CWDI, except for the filling and mature period, the CWDI at other growth periods showed a slight downward trend; for M, there was no significant change in the interannual trend of each growth period. In terms of spatial scale, the proportion of above moderate drought level in each station of CWDI and M presented a decreasing feature from north to south. (2) The time lag of winter wheat drought to meteorological drought was the shortest (3.21 days) in the greening and heading period and the longest in the over-wintering period (84.35 days). (3) The correlation between the geographical factors and the time lag of winter wheat drought in each growth period was better than 0.5. The high-value points of the relation between the underlying surface geographical factors and the time lag of winter wheat drought were mostly distributed in the mountainous areas with poor soil field capacity and at a greater depth of shallow groundwater, high elevation and steep slope in the areas with aspects to the east and northeast, and the northern areas with less precipitation and lower temperature.

Highlights

Under climate change, agricultural losses caused by drought have become more and more severe [1,2]
The high-value points of the relation between the underlying surface geographical factors and the time lag of winter wheat drought were mostly distributed in the mountainous areas with poor soil field capacity and at a greater depth of shallow groundwater, high elevation and steep slope in the areas with aspects to the east and northeast, and the northern areas with less precipitation and lower temperature
The results suggest that during the pre-winter growth period, crop water deficit index (CWDI) was in the range between

Summary

Introduction

Agricultural losses caused by drought have become more and more severe [1,2]. Droughts are generally classified into four types: agricultural drought, meteorological drought, hydrological drought, and socioeconomic drought [3,4]. The development and end of meteorological drought are relatively fast, while agricultural drought occurs later than meteorological drought [5,6,7]. It is relatively easy to assess meteorological droughts based on current global precipitation data records [8,9,10]. Investigations into the time lag for meteorological drought to agricultural drought provides an alternative method for monitoring and forecasting agricultural drought [6].

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Conclusion