An Investigation and assessment of meteorological drought in Lake Urmia Basin using drought indices and probabilistic methods

Document Type : Review Article

Authors

1 Professor, Climatology, Urmia University, Iran

2 Lecturer, Department of Geography, Payame Noor University, PO Box 3697-19395, Tehran, Iran

3 M.A in Physical Geography, Payame Noor University. Urmia, Iran

Abstract

Drought is one of the most important weather-induced phenomena which may have severe impacts on different areas such as agriculture, economy, energy production, and society. A number of drought indices have been introduced and used in various countries to date. In the current study, four meteorological drought indices including Percent of Normal Precipitation Index (PNPI), Standard Index of Annual Precipitation (SIAP), Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI), and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) are compared and evaluated for monitoring droughts in Lake Urmia Basin in Iran. The comparison of indices was carried out based on drought classes that were monitored in the study area using 40 years of data (1966-2005). Two well-known probability approaches including Runs theory and Markov chain model, were used to estimate the probability of wet and dry periods. The frequency matrix is formed and the transition probability matrix of wet- dry spells is created accordingly based on maximum likelihood method. The equilibrium probability is calculated based on succeed power on probability matrix. The results demonstrated that among the drought indices, PNPI is not an appropriate index in annual estimates and SPI and RAI are better than other indices and their results are nearer to reality. The results indicated the equilibrium probability of very dry, dry, normal, wet and very wet periods is obtained 0.23, 0.27, 0.23, 0.17 and 0.1, respectively. 

Keywords

References

  1. Asefjaha, B., Faniana, F., Feizia, Z., Abolhasania, A., Paktinatb, H., Naghiloua, M., Molaei Atanic, A., Asadollahia, M., Babakhania, M., Kouroshni, A., Salehia, F. (2014). Meteorological drought monitoring using several drought indices (case study: Salt Lake Basin in Iran). Desert, 19(2): 155-165.
  2. Barua, S., Ng, A.W.M., Perera, B.J.C. (2011). Comparative evaluation of drought indexes: case study on the Yarra River catchment in Australia. J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage. ASCE, 37: 215-226.
  3. Bordi, I., Fraedrich, K., Gerstengarbe, F.W., Werner, P.C., Sutera, A. (2004). Potential predictability of dry and wet periods: sicily and Elbe-Basin (Germany). Theoretical and Applied Climatology 77, 125e138.
  4. Bryant S.J., Arnell N.W., Law F.M. (1992). The long-term context for the current hydrological drought. Proceedings of IWEM Conference on the Management of Scarce Water Resources, Scotland; 13–14 October.
  5. Buntgen, UV., Trouet, D., Frank, H.H., Leuschnr, D., Friedrichs (2010). Tree -ring indices of German summer drought over the last millennium . Quaternary Science Reviews, 29: 1005-1016.
  6. Çinlar, E. (1975). Introduction to stochastic processes Prentice-Hall. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey(420p).
  7. Fathian, F., Morid, S., Kahya, E. (2015). Identification of trends in hydrological and climatic variables in Urmia Lake basin, Iran. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 119(3-4): 443-464.
  8. Hao, Z., AghaKouchak, A. (2014). A nonparametric multivariate multi-index drought monitoring framework. J. Hydrometeorol, 15(1): 89-101.
  9. Hao, Z., AghaKouchak, A. (2013). Multivariate standardized drought index: a parametric multi-index model. Adv. Water Resour. 57: 12-18.
  10. Hayes, M., Svoboda, M., Wall, N., Widhalm, M. (2011). The Lincoln Declaration on Drought Indices: universal meteorological drought index recommended. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 92(4): 485-488.
  11. He, B., Lü, A.F., Wu, J.J., Zhao, L., Liu, M. (2011). Drought hazard assessment and spatial characteristics analysis in China. J. Geog. Sci., 21(2): 235-249.
  12. Huang, J., Sun, S.L., Xue, Y., Li, J.J., Zhang, J.C. (2014). Spatial and temporal variability of precipitation and dryness/wetness during 1961e2008 in Sichuan province, west China. Water Resources Management 28: 1655-1670.
  13. IPCC (2012). Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. In: Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F., Stocker, D., Qin, D.J., Dokken, K.L., Ebi, M.D., Mastrandrea, K.J., Mach, G.-K. Plattner, Allen, S.K., Tignor, M., Midgley, P.M. (Eds.), A special report of working groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY, USA.
  14. IPCC (2013). Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Stocker, T.F., Qin, D., Plattner, M., Tignor, S.K., Allen, J., Boschung, A., Nauels, Y., Bex, V., Midgley, P.M. (Eds.), Working group I contribution to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
  15. Kannan, S.K., Farook, J.A. (2015). Stochastic Simulation of Precipitation Using Markov Chain-Mixed Exponential Model. Applied Mathematical Sciences, 65(9): 3205-3212.
  16. Karimpour Reyhan, M., Esmaeilpour, Y., Malekian, A.R.M.E.N., Mashhadi, N., Kamali, N. (2009). Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Drought Vulnerability using the Standardized Precipitation Index (Case study: Semnan Province, Iran). Desert, 14(2): 133-140.
  17. Keyantash, J., Dracup, J.A. (2002). The quantification of drought: an evaluation of drought indices. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 83: 1167-1180.
  18. Khalili, A. (1998). Publication of the country comprehensive water plan-Making timely. Ministry of Energy. Jamab, Tehran: 1-5 [In Persian].
  19. Khalili, A. (1991). Meteorological basin report of comprehensive water plan. Ministry of Energy, Jamab, Tehran [In Persian].
  20. McKee, T.B., Doesken, N.J., Kleist, J. (1993). The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time steps. preprints. In: 8th Conference on Applied Climatology, Anaheim, CA, 17e, 22 January: 179-184.
  21. Mishra, A.K., Singh, V.P. (2011). Drought modeling – a review. J. Hydrol,. 403: 157-175.
  22. Mishra, A.K., Singh, V.P. (2010). A review of drought concepts. J. Hydrol., 391: 202-216.
  23. Moreira, E.E., Coelho, C.A., Paulo, A.A., Pereira, L.S., Mexia, J.T. (2008). SPI-based drought category prediction using log linear models, J. Hydrology, 345: 116-130.
  24. Morid, S., Smakhtin, V., Moghaddasi, M. (2006). Comparison of seven meteorological indices for drought monitoring in Iran. Int. J. Climatol., 26: 971-985.
  25. Nam, W.H., Hayes, M.J., Svoboda, M.D., Tadesse, T., Wilhite, D.A. (2015). Drought hazard assessment in the context of climate change for South Korea. Agricultural Water Management, 160: 106-117.
  26. Oguntunde, P.G., Abiodun, J.B., Gunnar, L.G. (2011). Rainfall trends in Nigeria, 1901–2000.
  27. Palmer, W.C. (1965). Meteorological Drought. Research Paper No. 45. Weather Bureau, Washington, DC.
  28. Panu, U.S., Sharma, T.C. (2009). Analysis of annual hydrological droughts: the case of northwest Ontario, Canada. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 54(1): 29-42.
  29. Ramazani Gourabi, B. (2005). Studying drought event using precipitation normal percentage index in Gilan central regions, desert, 10(2).
  30. Raziei, T., Saghafian, B., Paulo, A.A., Pereira, L.S., Bordi, I. (2009). Spatial patterns and temporal variability of drought in western Iran. Water Resources Management, 23(3): 439-455.
  31. Shukla, S., Wood, A.W. (2008). Use of a standardized runoff index for characterizing hydrologic drought. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L02405.
  32. Tallaksen, L.M., van Lanen, H.A.J. (2004). Hydrological Drought: Processes and estimation methods for stream flow and groundwater. Developments in Water Science, Vol. 48. Elsevier, Amsterdam. p. 579.
  33. Tsakiris, G., Pangalou, D., Vangelis, H. (2007). Regional drought assessment based on the reconnaissance drought Index (RDI). Water Resour. Manag.21: 821-833.
  34. Vafakhah, M., Rajabi, M. (2005). Climatology drought index effectiveness for evaluation of watershed area droughts of Bakhtegan lagoon, Tashak and Maharlou, Desert, 10(2).
  35. Van Rooy, M.P. (1965). A rainfall anomaly index independent of time and space. Notos 14, 43.
  36. Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Beguera, S., Lopez-Moreno, J.I. (2010). A multi-scalar drought index sensitive to global warming: the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index. J. Clim., 23(7): 1696-1718.
  37. Wilks, D.S. (2011). Statistical methods in the atmospheric sciences, Vol. 100, Academic press, USA.
  38. Willeke, G., Hosking, J.R M., Wallis, J.R., Guttman, N.B. (1994). The National Drought Atlass, Institute for water resources report 94- NDS-4, U. S Army Corps of Engineers: 582-587.
  39. Yevjevich, V. (1967). An objective approach to definition and investigations of continental hydrologic droughts. In: Hydrology Paper No. 23. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA.
Natural Environment Change
Volume 2, Issue 2
July 2016
Pages 153-164

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics