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Elsevier, Procedia Engineering, (154), p. 738-744, 2016

DOI: 10.1016/j.proeng.2016.07.577

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Spatio-temporal Analysis of Hydrological Drought at Catchment Scale Using a Spatially-distributed Hydrological Model

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Lately, drought is more intense and much more severe around the globe, causing more deaths than other hazards in the past century. Drought can be characterized quantitatively for its spatial extent, intensity and duration by using drought indicators. Several indicators have been developed in order to characterize drought, being the most widespread the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). Nevertheless, due to its known limitations, other indicators have been proposed. In this paper, evaporation and runoff simulations of a basin were used to evaluate the variation and performance of different meteorological and hydrological drought indicators in identifying drought. Daily simulations of evaporation and runoff were computed by using a distributed hydrological model of a catchment located in the southeast of Mexico. After calibration of the hydrological model, we calculated at different time steps the drought indicators: Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI), Evapotranspiration Deficit Index (ETDI), Standardized Evapotranspiration Deficit Index (SEDI) and Standardized Runoff Index (SRI). Furthermore, the so-called Non-Contiguous Drought Analysis (NCDA) was carried out to compare the skill of each indicator to identify drought. Results show that meteorological drought indicators do not identify all drought events for the time steps of 1 and 3 months. For 3-, 6- and 9-month time steps, meteorological drought indicators tend to identify the onset with a lag. For long-time steps of 12 and 24, the use of agricultural and hydrological droughts indicators is recommended, since these indicators can identify prolonged drought periods. The results suggest that for a better monitoring of drought in a catchment, it is important the joint evaluation and the use of not only meteorological drought indicators but also hydrological and agricultural ones, in order to identify drought events and their spatio-temporal evolution.