Author(s): Mustafa S. Altinakar; Brandi L. Gamelin; Julie Bessac; Vishwas Rao

Linked Author(s): Mustafa Altinakar

Keywords: Drought; PDSI; SVDI; Connected component analysis; Hydrometeorological dat

Abstract: Drought is a slow onset, creeping natural hazard with potential short-term and long-term consequences that may severely affect socioeconomic development and the ecosystem at regional and national scales. Climate change is already affecting drought patterns (intensity, duration, frequency and extent) around the world and exacerbating their impacts. There are different types of droughts that operate on different time scales and durations: the meteorological drought (lack of precipitation), agricultural drought (insufficiency of the available water for crops or livestock), and hydrological drought (depletion of water in rivers, lakes, manmade reservoirs, and groundwater supplies). Since drought can build slowly, and its effects can linger at the end, identifying the initiation and termination of each drought event remains a challenge. This study explores a Connected Component Analysis (CCA) method to extract three-dimensional drought structures from gridded, spatiotemporal data using two drought indices: Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and Standardized Vapor Pressure Deficit Drought Index (SVDI). The characteristics of these 3D drought structures, such as area, mass, volume, density, and duration are computed as a time series. These are then compared with the time series of selected hydrometeorological variables such as rainfall, streamflow, snow-water equivalent, temperature, etc. at the basin scale to gain a better understanding of the 3D drought structures and their potential use in generating actionable information for decision makers. After briefly discussing the CCA methods, the paper discusses the relationships between the characteristics of the drought structures and hydrometeorological variables and presents some preliminary conclusions.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/978-90-833476-1-5_iahr40wc-p1642-cd

Year: 2023