Spatiotemporal variation of hydrological drought based on the Optimal Standardized Streamflow Index in Luanhe River basin, China

Abstract

To establish the drought index objectively and reasonably and evaluate the hydrological drought accurately, firstly, the optimal distribution was selected from nine distributions (normal, lognormal, exponential, gamma, general extreme value, inverse Gaussian, logistic, log-logistic and Weibull), then the Optimal Standardized Streamflow Index (OSSI) was calculated based on the optimal distribution, and last, the spatiotemporal evolution of hydrological drought based on the OSSI series was investigated through the monthly streamflow data of seven hydrological stations during the period 1961–2011 in Luanhe River basin, China. Results suggest: (1) the general extreme value and log-logistic distributions performed prominently in fitting the monthly streamflow of Luanhe River basin. (2) The main periods of hydrological drought in Luanhe River basin were 148–169, 75–80, 42–45, 14–19 and 8–9 months. (3) The hydrological drought had an aggravating trend over the past 51 year and with the increase in timescale, the aggravating trend was more serious. (4) The lower the drought grade was, the broader the coverage area. As for the Luanhe River basin, the whole basin suffered the mild and more serious drought, while the severe and more serious drought only cover some areas. (5) With the increase in time step, the frequency distribution of mild droughts across the basin tended to be concentrated, the frequency of extreme droughts in middle and upper reaches tended to increase and the frequency in downstream tends to decrease. This research can provide powerful references for water resources planning and management and drought mitigation.