Abstract
Drought has become a recurrent phenomenon in Algeria in the last few decades. Significant drought conditions were observed during the late 1980s and late 1990s. The agricultural sector and water resources have been under severe constraints from the recurrent droughts. In this study, spatial and temporal dimensions of meteorological droughts in the Wadi Mina basin (4900 km2) were investigated to assess vulnerability. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) method and GIS were used to detail temporal and geographical variations in drought based on monthly records for the period 1970–2010 at 16 rainfall stations located in the Wadi Mina basin. Trends in annual SPI for stations in the basin were analyzed using the Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator. Results showed that the SPI was able to detect historical droughts in 1982/83, 1983/84, 1989/90, 1992/93, 1993/94, 1996/97, 1998/99, 1999/00, 2004/05 and 2006/07. Wet years were observed in 1971/72, 1972/73, 1995/96, 2008/09 and 2009/10. Six out of 16 stations had significant decreasing precipitation trends (at 95% confidence), whereas no stations had significant increasing precipitation trends. Based on these findings, measures to ameliorate and mitigate the effects of droughts, especially the dominant intensity types, on the people, community and environment are suggested.
Highlights
Drought is a recurring phenomenon that affects a wide variety of sectors, making it difficult to develop a single definition of it
The water resources are equal 450 cubic meters (m3) per capita per year and are slightly below the 500 m3 per capita per year that is recommended as the scarcity threshold indicating a water crisis
The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to provide an indicator of drought severity in this study
Summary
Drought is a recurring phenomenon that affects a wide variety of sectors, making it difficult to develop a single definition of it. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), developed by McKee et al [19] in the 1990s, is robust and effective for evaluating meteorological drought and remains a very popular choice among researchers to reveal drought and to estimate duration and intensity of drought events [19]. The SPI has several advantages, as discussed by [20] and [21], over many other drought indices, such as some of those mentioned above It is based only on rainfall, so that in the absence of other hydro-meteorological measurements, drought assessment is still possible. There has not been a study on spatial and temporal variations of meteorological drought, expressed by SPI, in the region of the Wadi Mina basin of northwest Algeria, which is characterized by high intensities of agriculture and presence of forest cover.
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