Spatial Patterns and Temporal Variability of Drought in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitan Areas in China

Drought identification and assessment are essential for regional water resources management. In this paper, the spatiotemporal characteristics of drought were evaluated based on monthly precipitation data from 33 synoptic stations during the period of 1960–2010. The percent of normal precipitation was applied to illustrate the driest years in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei metropolitan areas (BTHMA) (1965, 1997, and 2002). The modified Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) was applied to capture the drought patterns and to estimate the drought severity at 33 meteorological stations. Agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis (AHCA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to identify three different drought subregions R1, R2, and R3 based on the monthly precipitation values in BTHMA, which is located in southeast, north, and south of BTHMA, respectively. The year 1965 was the driest and 1964 was the wettest during the observed period. The characteristics of drought were analyzed in terms of the temporal evolution of the RDI-12 values and the frequency of drought for the three identified regions. The percentage of years characterized by drought was 13.73% for R1, 16.50% for R2, and 15.53% for R3. 66.91% of drought belongs to the near normal drought category. The obtained results can aid to improve water resources management in the area.