Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Performance of Drought Indices for Ecological, Agricultural, and Hydrological Applications

Performance of Drought Indices for Ecological, Agricultural, and Hydrological Applications In this study, the authors provide a global assessment of the performance of different drought indices for monitoring drought impacts on several hydrological, agricultural, and ecological response variables. For this purpose, they compare the performance of several drought indices (the standardized precipitation index (SPI); four versions of the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI); and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI)) to predict changes in streamflow, soil moisture, forest growth, and crop yield. The authors found a superior capability of the SPEI and the SPI drought indices, which are calculated on different time scales than the Palmer indices to capture the drought impacts on the aforementioned hydrological, agricultural, and ecological variables. They detected small differences in the comparative performance of the SPI and the SPEI indices, but the SPEI was the drought index that best captured the responses of the assessed variables to drought in summer, the season in which more drought-related impacts are recorded and in which drought monitoring is critical. Hence, the SPEI shows improved capability to identify drought impacts as compared with the SPI. In conclusion, it seems reasonable to recommend the use of the SPEI if the responses of the variables of interest to drought are not known a priori. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Earth Interactions American Meteorological Society

Performance of Drought Indices for Ecological, Agricultural, and Hydrological Applications

Download PDF
27 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/american-meteorological-society/performance-of-drought-indices-for-ecological-agricultural-and-A6XCLjgsYD

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
American Meteorological Society
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 American Meteorological Society
ISSN
1087-3562
eISSN
1087-3562
DOI
10.1175/2012EI000434.1
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In this study, the authors provide a global assessment of the performance of different drought indices for monitoring drought impacts on several hydrological, agricultural, and ecological response variables. For this purpose, they compare the performance of several drought indices (the standardized precipitation index (SPI); four versions of the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI); and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI)) to predict changes in streamflow, soil moisture, forest growth, and crop yield. The authors found a superior capability of the SPEI and the SPI drought indices, which are calculated on different time scales than the Palmer indices to capture the drought impacts on the aforementioned hydrological, agricultural, and ecological variables. They detected small differences in the comparative performance of the SPI and the SPEI indices, but the SPEI was the drought index that best captured the responses of the assessed variables to drought in summer, the season in which more drought-related impacts are recorded and in which drought monitoring is critical. Hence, the SPEI shows improved capability to identify drought impacts as compared with the SPI. In conclusion, it seems reasonable to recommend the use of the SPEI if the responses of the variables of interest to drought are not known a priori.

Journal

Earth Interactions – American Meteorological Society

Published: Jan 18, 2012

References

  • Improved ground hydrology calculations for global climate models (GCMs): Soil water movement and evapotranspiration
    Abramopoulos
  • Temperature sensitivity of drought-induced tree mortality portends increased regional die-off under global-change-type drought
    Adams
  • Evaluation of the Palmer drought index on the Canadian prairies
    Akinremi
  • A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests
    Allen
  • The Palmer drought severity index: Limitations and applications
    Alley
  • Palmer drought severity index as a measure of hydrologica drought
    Alley
  • Evaluation of drought indices based on thermal remote sensing of evapotranspiration over the continental United States
    Anderson
  • Reduced growth of Alaskan white spruce in the twentieth century from temperature-induced drought stress
    Barber
  • Comparative evaluation of drought indexes: Case study on the Yarra River catchment in Australia
    Barua