Abstract
Drought is one of the most devastating natural hazards causing considerable losses in all climatic zones of the world. It is one of the most complex and the least understood hazards at the same time because of its spatially heterogeneous and temporally variable character. Spatially dense and uniformly distributed ground-based meteorological data are needed for proper spatial and temporal drought analysis. In practice, such data are lacking in general due either to the nonexistence of ground stations or their uneven and scarce distribution over a region. This creates a great potential in the use of satellite precipitation estimates (SPEs) such as the long-period high-resolution Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Station (CHIRPS) data in drought analysis. In this study, we aim to analyze drought over the Kucuk Menderes River Basin in the western part of Turkey by using the CHIRPS data, which were found highly correlated with precipitation in the local ground stations. The analysis was performed by considering the spatial variability and temporal change in the drought characterization based on the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) calculated at the 3-month (seasonal) timescale. Drought in the river basin was found to have a within-year variability from month to month, and a spatial variability over the basin in any given month. Also, an over-year variability with a decreasing trend exists, which could be considered a signal for more strengthened droughts in the future. The study eventually demonstrates how the CHIRPS SPEs could be useful in the spatial and temporal drought analysis for regions with limited ground-based meteorological data.
Highlights
Precipitation is the integral part and main driving agent of global water budget
The scarcity of ground stations combined with the availability of the well performed satellite precipitation estimates (SPEs) has been the motivation for this study which aims at (i) evaluating the performance of Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Station (CHIRPS) at the 3-month time scale over the Kucuk Menderes River basin; and (ii) mapping the spatio-temporal variability over the river basin by using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
The three meteorological stations have shown similar variability, their SPI3 values demonstrated a high correlation with SPI3 calculated from SPEs of CHIRPS
Summary
Precipitation is the integral part and main driving agent of global water budget. It is important to comprehensively study at various spatial scales ranging from a watershed (Vaheddoost and Aksoy, 2017) to a region (Ferrari et al, 2013) or to a country (Dahamsheh and Aksoy, 2007), and at temporal scales ranging from minutes to days, weeks, month and years (Unal et al 2004). In order to capture the spatial and temporal variability in precipitation, it is essentially important to have spatiallydense and temporally-long, accurate and reliable precipitation data. It becomes more important when the issue concerned is drought, being one of the most harmful natural hazards (McKee et al, 1993, Mishra and Singh, 2010) due to its negative effects on the society, economy and environment. Drought is mainly categorized by its impacts on various sectors It starts with precipitation deficit as meteorological drought and propagates into agricultural and hydrological droughts, and into its socioeconomical and environmental types (van Loon, 2015). A great interest has been observed on drought to understand the process itself or to develop methodologies and to extend its effect on the society, economy and environment
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