Abstract
This study presents spatio-temporal analysis of droughts in one of the most drought prone region in India–western Rajasthan and develops drought intensity-area-frequency curves for the region. The meteorological drought conditions are analyzed using 6-month standardized precipitation index (SPI-6) estimated at spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5°. Spatio-temporal analysis of SPI-6 indicates increase in frequency of droughts at the central part of the region. The non-parametric Mann–Kendall test for seasonal trend analysis showed increase in number of grids under drought during the study period. Further, bivariate frequency analysis of drought characteristics—intensity and areal extent is carried out using copula methods. For modeling joint dependence between drought variables, three copula families namely Gumbel-Hougaard, Frank and Plackett copulas are evaluated. Based on goodness-of-fit as well as upper tail dependence tests, it is found that the Gumbel-Hougaard copula best represents the drought properties. The copula-based joint distribution is used to compute conditional return periods and drought intensity–area–frequency (I–A–F) curves. The I–A–F curves could be helpful in risk evaluation of droughts in the region.
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