Trends and behaviour of meteorological drought (1901–2008) over Indian region using standardized precipitation–evapotranspiration index

Abstract

Monthly gridded (0.5 ∘ × 0.5 ∘ ) standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI) data of 1901-2008 were used to detect spatial pattern of temporal trend in meteorological drought during the Indian summer monsoon period. The SPEI data were converted into drought duration, magnitude and types of occurrence to capture overall drought scenario. A non-parametric (Mann-Kendall test) method was used to test for monotonic trend at each grid level, whereas the magnitude was estimated using Sen's method. Further, a field significance test was performed at major meteorological regions level to assess whether the individual trends identified could occur by chance in an analysis of large number of time series analysed. Significant ( = 0.05) increasing trend of both drought duration and magnitude during the monsoon was found over parts of eastern, central and north-eastern region of India, whereas the parts of west coast, arid western region and north India showed significantly decreasing trend. The trends in mid-as well as late-season drought were contributing towards significant increase in drought condition, whereas trends in early-season drought were responsible for decrease in drought events. The time series analysis of rainfall and potential evapotranspiration (PET) illustrated that over eastern part of India the increase in drought was attributed due to decrease in rainfall, whereas the decrease in drought occurrence over western arid region was mainly because of decrease in PET.

Assessment of Drought Impact on Main Cereal Crops Using a Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index in Liaoning Province, China

“…The drought duration is the extent and persistence of the drought, whereas the magnitude of drought is the intensity of the drought [39]. The drought episodes, including the accumulated SPI and SPEI, drought frequency (SPI/SPEI < 0.0), drought duration, and drought magnitude during the main crop growth stages, were all detected by using both SPI and SPEI indices at a one-month lag ( Figure 4).…”

Análisis comparativo de índices de sequía en Andalucía para el periodo 1901-2012

“…Los valores que toma el SPEI para la determinación de episodios secos son los mismos que el SPI (Tabla 1). Este índice ha sido ampliamente aceptado y utilizado en estudios de sequía a muy diversas escalas (Vicente-Serrano et al, 2014a;Manatsa et al, 2015;Naumann et al, 2015;Blauhut et al, 2015;Stagge et al, 2015aStagge et al, , 2015bDas et al, 2016;Rhee and Cho, 2016;Yang et al, 2016).…”

Characterizing Indian meteorological moisture anomaly condition using long‐term (1901–2013) gridded data: a multivariate moisture anomaly index approach

“…(), whereas Das et al . () can be referred for information on trends of SPEI and its derived parameters over Indian region.…”

“…According to several literatures, the occurrence of drought episodes can be defined as SPI or SPEI being negative (Vicente‐Serrano et al ., , ; Meza, ; Das et al ., ). The magnitude of the evapotranspiration can be a significant portion of the rainfall; however, in the present study the significant anomaly of any of the index (i.e.…”