A Global Drought and Flood Catalogue from 1950 to 2016

Abstract

Hydrological extremes, in the form of droughts and floods, have impacts on a wide range of sectors including water availability, food security, and energy production. Given continuing large impacts of droughts and floods and the expectation for significant regional changes projected in the future, there is an urgent need to provide estimates of past events and their future risk, globally. However, current estimates of hydrological extremes are not robust and accurate enough, due to lack of long-term data records, standardized methods for event identification, geographical inconsistencies, and data uncertainties. To tackle these challenges, this article presents the development of the first Global Drought and Flood Catalogue (GDFC) for 1950–2016 by merging the latest in situ and remote sensing datasets with state-of-the-art land surface and hydrodynamic modeling to provide a continuous and consistent estimate of the terrestrial water cycle and its extremes. This GDFC also includes an unprecedented level of detailed analysis of drought and large-scale flood events using univariate and multivariate risk assessment frameworks, which incorporates regional spatial–temporal characteristics (i.e., duration, spatial extent, severity) and global hazard maps for different return periods. This Catalogue forms a basis for analyzing the changing risk of droughts and floods and can underscore national and international climate change assessments and provide a key reference for climate change studies and climate model evaluations. It also contributes to the growing interests in multivariate and compounding risk analysis.

Historical Water Storage Changes Over China's Loess Plateau

“…This data set combines field observations from China Meteorological Administration, satellite precipitation from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), Global Energy and Water Exchanges‐Surface Radiation Budget (GEWEX‐SRB), and the Princeton Global Forcing (X. He, Pan et al., 2020; Sheffield et al., 2006). The meteorological data used in this study include temperature, radiation, water vapor pressure, specific humidity, precipitation, and barometric pressure from 1982 to 2009.…”

Differential Expression of Maize and Teosinte microRNAs under Submergence, Drought, and Alternated Stress

“…As a consequence of global warming, hydrological fluctuation events such as excessive rainfall and droughts are common and projected to continue in the future, affecting economic activities [ 1 ]. Alterations in water availability in the field, either caused by water surplus or deficit, produce water stress in plants that negatively impacts the growth and productivity of crops worldwide [ 2 ].…”

Identifying ENSO-Related Interannual and Decadal Variability on Terrestrial Water Storage

“…Changes in TWS also correspond to water mass movement between land and ocean and have recently emerged as the dominant cause of interannual variability in global mean sea level [2][3][4] . Many studies indicated that regional imbalances and extreme changes in TWS caused by human activities have been increasing, and this trend is expected to continue in the current century [5][6][7] . Under these circumstances, it is essential to properly understand the change of TWS and predict the change of TWS based on the understanding in terms of securing stable water resources for human beings and the ecosystem.…”