Propagation of Meteorological to Hydrological Droughts in India

Abstract

Drought is among the costliest natural disasters that affect the economy, food and water security, and socioeconomic well-being of about 1.4 billion people in India. Despite the profound implications of droughts, the propagation of meteorological to hydrological droughts in India is not examined. Here, we use observations and simulations from a well-calibrated and evaluated Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model to estimate drought propagation in India. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSMI), and Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI) were estimated for 223 catchments in India to represent meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological droughts, respectively. We estimated drought propagation time for these catchments located in 18 major Indian subcontinental river basins. Internal propagation of hydrological drought was estimated using optimal hydrological Instantaneous Development Speed (IDS) and Instantaneous Recovery Speed (IRS) from onset to the termination. Indus, Sabarmati, and Godavari river basins have higher propagation time of meteorological to hydrological droughts. The high (low) development rate of hydrological drought is followed by the high (low) recovery rate for most of the locations. We find significant influence of Seasonality Index (SI) and Base Flow Index (BFI) on propagation time of meteorological to hydrological droughts in the Indian subcontinental river basins. Overall, understanding of drought propagation, development/recovery speed, and their deriving factors can assist in the management and planning of water resources in India.

Investigating the Propagation From Meteorological to Hydrological Drought by Introducing the Nonlinear Dependence With Directed Information Transfer Index

“…Bhardwaj et al. (2020) used standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index and SSI to study meteorological drought and hydrological drought in India, and showed that hydrological drought lagged behind meteorological drought by 1–3 months. Zhou, Shi, et al.…”

Drought Characterisation and Impact Assessment on Basin Hydrology—A Geospatial Approach

“…VIC hydrological model has been used earlier for analysing the impact of land use land cover change (Aggarwal et al 2012;Garg et al 2017;Garg et al 2019), climate change (Aggarwal et al 2016;Garg et al 2013, Sharma et al 2020) on hydrology of river basins. It is also being used to simulate hydrological processes for assessment, characterisation and evolution of droughts (Bhardwaj et al 2020;Mishra et al 2010;Niu et al 2015;Shamshirband et al 2020). VIC, a grid-based land surface representation model simulates land surfaceatmosphere fluxes of moisture and energy.…”

“…Over the last decade, the propagation of meteorological drought to another form of droughts has been a significant topic in the hydrological research community (Barker et al 2016;Nanda et al 2021;Van Loon and Laaha 2015;Wang et al 2021) but with only one peer-reviewed study (Bhardwaj et al 2020) available for Indian region. Detailed investigation examining-How the meteorological drought induced by the climatic anomalies develops and propagates considering the anthropogenic interventions is required for Indian river basins.…”

Development of a Non-stationary Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (NSPEI) for Drought Monitoring in a Changing Climate

“…The origin of all droughts starts from lack of precipitation (meteorological drought). It gradually spreads to the other sectors in the form of deficiency in soil moisture (agricultural drought) and reduction of surface water and groundwater resources (hydrological drought) (Bhardwaj et al 2020, Huang et al 2017, Van Lanen 2006. Therefore, the accurate monitoring of meteorological drought would be very important in predicting agricultural and hydrological droughts.…”