Abstract
As a major agricultural country, China suffers from severe meteorological drought almost every year. Previous studies have applied a single threshold to identify the onset of drought events, which may cause problems to adequately characterize long-term patterns of droughts. This study analyzes meteorological droughts in China based on a set of daily gridded (0.5° × 0.5°) precipitation data from 1961 to 2014. By using a multi-threshold run theory approach to evaluate the monthly percentage of precipitation anomalies index (Pa), a drought events sequence was identified at each grid cell. The spatiotemporal variations of drought in China were further investigated based on statistics of the frequency, duration, severity, and intensity of all drought events. Analysis of the results show that China has five distinct meteorological drought-prone regions: the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, Northeast China, Southwest China, South China coastal region, and Northwest China. Seasonal analysis further indicates that there are evident spatial variations in the seasonal contribution to regional drought. But overall, most contribution to annual drought events in China come from the winter. Decadal variation analysis suggests that most of China’s water resource regions have undergone an increase in drought frequency, especially in the Liaohe, Haihe, and Yellow River basins, although drought duration and severity clearly have decreased after the 1960s.
Highlights
Drought is a major natural hazard with widespread impacts around the world
The analysis results of meteorological drought in China include the following parts: (1) general patterns of precipitation; (2) spatiotemporal variations of drought in China based on statistical analysis of the frequency, duration, severity, and intensity of all identified drought events; and (3) trend analysis of decadal variations of droughts in 10 water resource regions
We first analyze the spatiotemporal variations of precipitation in China before characterizing drought dynamics
Summary
Drought is a major natural hazard with widespread impacts around the world. Severe drought events occurred in China over the last few decades and these events have had extensive socioeconomic impacts (Barriopedro et al 2012). Southwestern China has suffered from a devastating drought event from autumn 2009 to spring 2010 during which approximately 21 million people were short of drinking water and the economic losses reached nearly USD 30 billion (Yang et al 2012). These and earlier droughts, for example, in the 1930s, 1959–1962, and 1999–2003 (Ding 2008), highlight the drought risk in China and indicate why it is critically important to understand the spatiotemporal variability of drought
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