Abstract
In recent years, Taiwan has been facing severe water shortages due to extreme drought. In addition, changes in rainfall patterns have resulted in an increasingly notable drought phenomenon, which affects the management and utilization of water resources. Therefore, this work examines basins in Central Taiwan. Long-term records from 13 rainfall and 17 groundwater stations were selected. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Groundwater Level Index (SGI) were used to analyze the drought characteristics of this region. The rainfall and groundwater level data from basins in Central Taiwan were analyzed in this study. The results show that the year 2015 experienced extreme drought conditions due to a correlation with SPI and SGI signals. In addition, with regard to groundwater drought, more drought events occurred in the Da'an River basin; however, the duration and intensity of these events were relatively low, in contrast to those of the Wu River basin. Finally, the correlation between SPI and SGI was observed to vary in different basins, but a certain degree of correlation was observed in all basins. The results show that drought intensity increases with longer drought durations. Moreover, severe droughts caused by rainfall tend to occur at a greater frequency than those caused by groundwater.
Highlights
Climate abnormalities are regarded as major environmental threats in the twenty-first century
The results show that Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Groundwater Level Index (SGI) evaluated with a short accumulation periods exhibit cyclical fluctuations and cannot be used to effectively evaluate and predict the occurrence of drought events
The SPI and SGI were used in this study to investigate the drought characteristics of basins in Central Taiwan by applying different time scales to evaluate drought characteristics
Summary
Climate abnormalities are regarded as major environmental threats in the twenty-first century. According to the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global surface temperatures have been increasing since the last 157 years with extremely large regional differences (IPCC Climate Change, 2007). Warming has intensified the global hydrologic cycle (Milly et al, 2002) and caused average global temperatures to increase, resulting in extreme hydrological events such as droughts or floods (Huntington, 2006; Jung et al, 2012; Gosling, 2014; Huang et al, 2017). Droughts can occur in any climatic region worldwide. Natural environmental factors, such as temperature, wind, and humidity, have important roles in the occurrence of droughts. Droughts decrease the supply of surface and groundwater resources, cause
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