scholarly journals Understanding and seasonal forecasting of hydrological drought in the Anthropocene

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 5477-5492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xing Yuan ◽  
Miao Zhang ◽  
Linying Wang ◽  
Tian Zhou
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Drought Event ◽  
Drought Forecasting ◽  
Drought Frequency ◽  
Drought Duration ◽  
Groundwater Exploitation ◽  
Human Interventions

Abstract. Hydrological drought is not only caused by natural hydroclimate variability but can also be directly altered by human interventions including reservoir operation, irrigation, groundwater exploitation, etc. Understanding and forecasting of hydrological drought in the Anthropocene are grand challenges due to complicated interactions among climate, hydrology and humans. In this paper, five decades (1961–2010) of naturalized and observed streamflow datasets are used to investigate hydrological drought characteristics in a heavily managed river basin, the Yellow River basin in north China. Human interventions decrease the correlation between hydrological and meteorological droughts, and make the hydrological drought respond to longer timescales of meteorological drought. Due to large water consumptions in the middle and lower reaches, there are 118–262 % increases in the hydrological drought frequency, up to 8-fold increases in the drought severity, 21–99 % increases in the drought duration and the drought onset is earlier. The non-stationarity due to anthropogenic climate change and human water use basically decreases the correlation between meteorological and hydrological droughts and reduces the effect of human interventions on hydrological drought frequency while increasing the effect on drought duration and severity. A set of 29-year (1982–2010) hindcasts from an established seasonal hydrological forecasting system are used to assess the forecast skill of hydrological drought. In the naturalized condition, the climate-model-based approach outperforms the climatology method in predicting the 2001 severe hydrological drought event. Based on the 29-year hindcasts, the former method has a Brier skill score of 11–26 % against the latter for the probabilistic hydrological drought forecasting. In the Anthropocene, the skill for both approaches increases due to the dominant influence of human interventions that have been implicitly incorporated by the hydrological post-processing, while the difference between the two predictions decreases. This suggests that human interventions can outweigh the climate variability for the hydrological drought forecasting in the Anthropocene, and the predictability for human interventions needs more attention.

scholarly journals Understanding and seasonal forecasting of hydrological drought in the anthropocene

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xing Yuan ◽  
Miao Zhang ◽  
Linying Wang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Variability ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Drought Event ◽  
Drought Forecasting ◽  
Groundwater Exploitation ◽  
Human Interventions

Abstract. Hydrological drought is not only caused by natural hydro-climate variability, but can also be directly altered by human interventions including reservoir operation, irrigation and groundwater exploitation, etc. Understanding and forecasting of hydrological drought in the anthropocene are grand challenges due to complicated interactions among climate, hydrology and human. In this paper, five decades (1961–2010) of naturalized and observed streamflow datasets are used to investigate hydrological drought characteristics in a heavily managed river basin, the Yellow River basin in North China. It is found that human interventions increase the nonlinear response of hydrological drought to the meteorological drought, and increase the response time especially during rainy seasons. Due to large water consumptions over the middle and lower reaches, there are two to four-fold increases in the hydrological drought frequency and up to six-fold increases in the drought severity, the drought duration increases by 12–83 %, and the drought onset becomes earlier. A set of 29-year (1982–2010) hindcasts from an established seasonal hydrological forecasting system are used to assess the forecast skill of hydrological drought. In the naturalized condition, the climate–model-based approach outperforms the climatology method in predicting the 2001 severe hydrological drought event. Based on the 29-year hindcasts, the former method has a Brier Skill Score of 11 %–26 % against the latter for the probabilistic hydrological drought forecasting. In the anthropocene, the skill for both approaches increases due to dominant influence of human interventions that have been implicitly incorporated by the hydrological post-processing, while the difference between two predictions decreases. This suggests that human interventions can outweigh the climate variability for the hydrological drought forecasting in the anthropocene, and the predictability for human interventions needs more attention.

scholarly journals Hydrological Drought Regimes of the Huai River Basin, China: Probabilistic Behavior, Causes and Implications

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sun ◽  
Zhang ◽  
Yao ◽  
Wen
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Copula Functions ◽  
Drought Duration ◽  
Huai River Basin ◽  
Huai River ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Hydrological Droughts ◽  
The Huai River Basin

: Hydrological droughts were characterized using the run-length theory and the AIC (Akaike information criterion) techniques were accepted to evaluate the modeling performance of nine probability functions. In addition, the copula functions were used to describe joint probability behaviors of drought duration and drought severity for the major tributaries of the Huai River Basin (HRB) which is located in the transitional zone between humid and semi-humid climates. The results indicated that: (1) the frequency of hydrological droughts in the upper HRB is higher than that in the central HRB, while the duration of the hydrological drought is in reverse spatial pattern. The drought frequency across the Shiguan River along the south bank of the HRB is higher than the other two tributaries; (2) generalized Pareto distribution is the appropriate distribution function with the best performance in modelling the drought duration over the HRB; while the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution can effectively describe the probabilistic properties of the drought severity. Joe copula and Tawn copula functions are the best choices and were used in this study. Given return periods of droughts of <30 years, the droughts in the upper HRB are the longest, and the shortest are in the central HRB; (3) the frequency of droughts along the mainstream of the HRB is higher than tributaries of the HRB. However, concurrence probability of droughts along the mainstream of the HRB is lower than the tributaries of the HRB. The drought resistance capacity of HRB has been significantly improved, effectively reducing the impact of hydrological drought on crops after 2010.

scholarly journals Uncertainties in runoff projection and hydrological drought assessment over Gharesu basin under CMIP5 RCP scenarios

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (S1) ◽  
pp. 145-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Ashrafi ◽  
H. Gholami ◽  
M. R. Najafi
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Drought Duration ◽  
Rcp Scenarios ◽  
Drought Assessment ◽  
Drought Characteristics

Abstract Hydrological drought plays an important role in planning and managing water resources systems to meet increasing water demands due to population growth. In this study, the effects of climate change on the hydrological drought characteristics of the Gharasu basin, as one of the major sub-basins of the Karkheh river basin, are investigated. This river basin has experienced severe droughts, and floods, in recent years. The uncertainties in projected drought conditions are characterized based on a suite of 34 general circulation models (GCMs). Based on hydrological simulations over the historical period, 12 GCMs are selected to estimate projected runoff values and the corresponding streamflow drought index (SDI) in the future period. The ‘run theory’ is applied to evaluate the drought characteristics under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5 emission scenarios. Results show that uncertainties of drought projection under RCP8.5 are higher than under RCP4.5, where among different drought characteristics, the maximum uncertainty is detected for drought severity and maximum drought duration. Moreover, the uncertainty of drought projection in wet periods is greater than that in dry periods.

Analysis of hydrological drought frequency for the Xijiang River Basin in South China using observed streamflow data

2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 1655-1677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiyong Wu ◽  
Qingxia Lin ◽  
Guihua Lu ◽  
Hai He ◽  
John J. Qu
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
South China ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Drought Frequency ◽  
Xijiang River ◽  
The Xijiang River ◽  
Streamflow Data

Flash Drought Characteristics by Different Severities in Humid Subtropical Basins: A Case Study in the Gan River Basin, China

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Yuqing Zhang ◽  
Qinglong You ◽  
Guangxiong Mao ◽  
Changchun Chen ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Vapour Pressure Deficit ◽  
Severity Index ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Drought Risk ◽  
Drought Event ◽  
Drought Period ◽  
Drought Intensity

AbstractIt is essential to assess flash drought risk based on a reliable flash drought intensity (severity) index incorporating comprehensive information of the rapid decline (“flash”) in soil moisture towards drought conditions and soil moisture thresholds belonging to the “drought” category. In this study, we used the Gan River Basin as an example to define a flash drought intensity index that can be calculated for individual time steps (pentads) during a flash drought period over a given grid (or station). The severity of a complete flash drought event is the sum of the intensity values during the flash drought. We explored the spatial and temporal characteristics of flash droughts with different grades based on their respective severities. The results show that decreases in total cloud cover, precipitation, and relative humidity, as well as increases in 500 hPa geopotential height, convective inhibition, temperature, vapour pressure deficit, and wind speed can create favorable conditions for the occurrence of flash droughts. Although flash droughts are relatively frequent in the central and southern parts of the basin, the severity is relatively high in the northern part of the basin due to longer duration. Flash drought severity shows a slightly downward trend due to decreases in frequency, duration, and intensity from 1961 to 2018. Extreme and exceptional flash droughts decrease significantly while moderate and severe flash droughts trend slightly upward. Flash drought severity appears to be more affected by the interaction between duration and intensity as the grade increases from mild to severe. The frequency and duration of flash droughts are higher in July to October. The southern part of the basin is more prone to moderate and severe flash droughts, while the northern parts of the basin are more vulnerable to extreme and exceptional flash droughts due to longer durations and greater severities than other parts. Moderate, severe, extreme, and exceptional flash droughts occurred approximately every 3-6, 5-15, 10-50, and 30-200 year intervals, respectively, based on the copula analysis.

scholarly journals Climatological Drought Forecasting Using Bias Corrected CMIP6 Climate Data: A Case Study for India

Forecasting ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alen Shrestha ◽  
Md Mafuzur Rahaman ◽  
Ajay Kalra ◽  
Rohit Jogineedi ◽  
Pankaj Maheshwari
Keyword(s):  
Coupled Model ◽  
Severity Index ◽  
Extreme Drought ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Drought Forecasting ◽  
Drought Duration ◽  
Intercomparison Project ◽  
Near Future

This study forecasts and assesses drought situations in various regions of India (the Araveli region, the Bundelkhand region, and the Kansabati river basin) based on seven simulated climates in the near future (2015–2044). The self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) was used based on its fairness in identifying drought conditions that account for the temperature as well. Gridded temperature and rainfall data of spatial resolution of 1 km were used to bias correct the multi-model ensemble mean of the Global Climatic Models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) project. Equidistant quantile-based mapping was adopted to remove the bias in the rainfall and temperature data, which were corrected on a monthly scale. The outcome of the forecast suggests multiple severe-to-extreme drought events of appreciable durations, mostly after the 2030s, under most climate scenarios in all the three study areas. The severe-to-extreme drought duration was found to last at least 20 to 30 months in the near future in all three study areas. A high-resolution drought index was developed and proven to be a key to assessing the drought situation.

scholarly journals Attribution Analysis of Hydrological Drought Risk Under Climate Change and Human Activities: A Case Study on Kuye River Basin in China

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1958 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhang ◽  
Wang ◽  
Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Drought Risk ◽  
Drought Duration ◽  
Recurrence Period ◽  
The Impact

This study conducted quantitative diagnosis on the impact of climate change and human activities on drought risk. Taking the Kuye river basin (KRB) in China as the research area, we used variation point diagnosis, simulation of precipitation and runoff, drought risk assessment, and attribution quantification. The results show that: (1) the annual runoff sequence of KRB changed significantly after 1979, which was consistent with the introduction of large-scale coal mining; (2) under the same drought recurrence period, the drought duration and severity in the human activity stage were significantly worse than in the natural and simulation stages, indicating that human activities changed the drought risk in this area; and (3) human activities had little impact on drought severity in the short duration and low recurrence period, but had a greater impact in the long duration and high recurrence period. These results provide scientific guidance for the management, prevention, and resistance of drought; and guarantee sustainable economic and social development in the KRB.

scholarly journals Quantifying human impacts on hydrological drought using a combined modelling approach in a tropical river basin in central Vietnam

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 547-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. B. M. Firoz ◽  
Alexandra Nauditt ◽  
Manfred Fink ◽  
Lars Ribbe
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Reservoir Operation ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Drought Risk ◽  
Climatic Data ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Hydropower Development ◽  
Drought Duration ◽  
Central Vietnam

Abstract. Hydrological droughts are one of the most damaging disasters in terms of economic loss in central Vietnam and other regions of South-east Asia, severely affecting agricultural production and drinking water supply. Their increasing frequency and severity can be attributed to extended dry spells and increasing water abstractions for e.g. irrigation and hydropower development to meet the demand of dynamic socioeconomic development. Based on hydro-climatic data for the period from 1980 to 2013 and reservoir operation data, the impacts of recent hydropower development and other alterations of the hydrological network on downstream streamflow and drought risk were assessed for a mesoscale basin of steep topography in central Vietnam, the Vu Gia Thu Bon (VGTB) River basin. The Just Another Modelling System (JAMS)/J2000 was calibrated for the VGTB River basin to simulate reservoir inflow and the naturalized discharge time series for the downstream gauging stations. The HEC-ResSim reservoir operation model simulated reservoir outflow from eight major hydropower stations as well as the reconstructed streamflow for the main river branches Vu Gia and Thu Bon. Drought duration, severity, and frequency were analysed for different timescales for the naturalized and reconstructed streamflow by applying the daily varying threshold method. Efficiency statistics for both models show good results. A strong impact of reservoir operation on downstream discharge at the daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual scales was detected for four discharge stations relevant for downstream water allocation. We found a stronger hydrological drought risk for the Vu Gia river supplying water to the city of Da Nang and large irrigation systems especially in the dry season. We conclude that the calibrated model set-up provides a valuable tool to quantify the different origins of drought to support cross-sectorial water management and planning in a suitable way to be transferred to similar river basins.

Drought frequency changes in Sabah and adjacent parts of northern Borneo since the late nineteenth century and possible implications for tropical rain forest dynamics

1996 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rory P. D. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Rain Forest ◽  
Tropical Rain Forest ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Drought Frequency ◽  
Drought Duration ◽  
Late Nineteenth

ABSTRACTArchival rainfall data are used to investigate changes in drought frequency and severity in Sabah and other parts of northern Borneo since the late nineteenth century. Two measures of drought severity are used: drought duration (given by the number of consecutive months with less than 100 mm rain); and drought intensity (indexed by the cumulative rainfall deficit below 100 mm per month of a drought sequence). Within northern Borneo dry periods are very short (>3 months) and infrequent in Sarawak, south-western Sabah, Brunei and central and western Kalimantan; droughts occur seasonally, but are comparatively short in north-western Sabah; droughts are less frequent) but more severe in eastern Sabah and parts of eastern Kalimantan. In coastal Sabah and Brunei, there has been a statistically significant increase in the frequency and severity of droughts since the late 1960s. At Sandakan, two drought-prone epochs in 1877–1915 and 1968–92 (each experiencing five droughts of at least 4 months duration) are identified, separated by a 52-year period that was nearly drought-free. At Sandakan also, the ecologically damaging 1982–3 drought was neither as long or severe as those of 1903 and 1915. Links with El Niño-Southern Oscillation events are found to be not as strong as previous studies have suggested. Possible implications of the spatial and temporal patterns in drought magnitude-frequency for differences in tropical rain forest character within the region are discussed.

scholarly journals Less Frequent but More Severe Hydrological Drought Events Emerge at 1.5 and 2 °C Warming Levels over the Wudinghe Watershed in northern China

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Jiao ◽  
Xing Yuan
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Drought Frequency ◽  
Drought Characteristics ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Hydrological Droughts

Abstract. Assessment of changes in hydrological droughts at specific warming levels (e.g., 1.5 or 2 °C) is important for an adaptive water resources management with consideration of the 2015 Paris Agreement. However, most studies focused on the response of drought frequency to the warming and neglected other drought characteristics including severity. By using a semiarid watershed in northern China (i.e., Wudinghe) as an example, here we show less frequent but more severe hydrological drought events emerge at both 1.5 and 2 °C warming levels. We used meteorological forcings from eight Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 climate models with four representative concentration pathways, to drive a newly developed land surface hydrological model to simulate streamflow, and analyzed historical and future hydrological drought characteristics based on the Standardized Streamflow Index. The Wudinghe watershed will reach the 1.5 °C (2 °C) warming level around 2006–2025 (2019–2038), with an increase of precipitation by 6 % (9 %) and runoff by 17 % (27 %) as compared to the baseline period (1986–2005). This results in a drop of drought frequency by 26 % (27 %). However, the drought severity will rise dramatically by 63 % (30 %), which is mainly caused by the increased variability of precipitation and evapotranspiration. The climate models contribute to more than 82 % of total uncertainties in the future projection of hydrological droughts. This study suggests that different aspects of hydrological droughts should be carefully investigated when assessing the impact of 1.5 and 2 °C warming.

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