Integrated mapping of groundwater drought risk in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region

Groundwater drought denotes the condition and hazard during a prolonged meteorological drought when groundwater resources decline and become unavailable or inaccessible for human use. Groundwater drought risk refers to the combined physical risk and human vulnerability associated with diminished groundwater availability and access during drought. An integrated management support tool, GRiMMS, is presented, for the mapping and assessment of relative groundwater drought risk in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Based on composite mapping analysis of region-wide gridded relative indices of meteorological drought risk, hydrogeological drought proneness and human groundwater drought vulnerability, the mapping results highlight consistent areas across the region with highest groundwater drought risk and populations in the order of 39 million at risk of groundwater drought at present. Projective climate-model results suggest a potentially significant negative impact of climate change on groundwater drought risk. The tool provides a means for further attention to the key, but neglected, role of groundwater in drought management in Africa.     

区域气象干旱评估分析模式

为应对全球范围内日益严重的干旱问题,对区域气象干旱相对完整的评估分析模式开展了探讨。提出了从区域气象干旱识别到干旱特征值计算,再到干旱特征多变量分析的3个分析评估步骤。并以渭河流域为例,对研究区域进行了矩形干旱评估单元划分,选取了RDI（Reconnaissance Drought Index）为评估指标对区域内各单元各时段的干旱状态进行了识别,结果与历史记载的干旱年份吻合较好。分别采用了分布拟合、相关系数和Copula函数等统计学方法对区域干旱的干旱特征值（干旱历时、干旱面积、干旱强度和干旱频率）进行了特征分析,得出了一系列的单变量、双变量及多变量特征分析对比结果。通过对各类分布函数的计算和绘图,得到了渭河流域干旱事件发生的条件概率和重现期,形成了一套相对完整的区域干旱评估分析模式。     

论气候变暖背景下干旱和干旱灾害风险特征与管理策略简

The drought is a most severe natural disaster worldwide, which leads to great risk in human being. The drought disaster and risk have more prominent because of obvious climatic warming in the last hundred years. At present, the understanding of the internal laws of the occurrence of drought and drought risk is not comprehensive, and the recognition of the characteristics of the drought and drought risk under climatic warming is obscure. In this paper, we summarized systematically the domestic and overseas research progress of the drought and drought disaster risk, introduced the principle of the drought disaster transfer process and the essential features of drought disaster, analyzed synthetically the main characteristics and interactions among the key factors of the drought disaster risk, discussed the effect of climatic warming on drought and drought disaster risk, and probed into the basic requirement of drought disaster risk management. Above all, we provide the main protective measurements of the drought disaster and the main strategy of drought disaster risk management.     

Assessing Vulnerability to Agricultural Drought: A Nebraska Case Study

Recent drought events in the United States and the magnitude of drought losses indicate the continuing vulnerability of the country to drought. Until recently, drought management in many states, including Nebraska, has been largely response oriented with little or no attention to mitigation and preparedness. In 1998, Nebraska began to revise its drought plan in order to place more emphasis on mitigation. One of the main aspects of drought mitigation and planning is the assessment of who and what is vulnerable and why. This paper presents a method for spatial, Geographic Information Systems-based assessment of agricultural drought vulnerability in Nebraska. It was hypothesized that the key biophysical and social factors that define agricultural drought vulnerability were climate, soils, land use, and access to irrigation. The framework for derivation of an agricultural drought vulnerability map was created through development of a numerical weighting scheme to evaluate the drought potential of the classes within each factor. The results indicate that the most vulnerable areas to agricultural drought were non-irrigatedcropland and rangeland on sandy soils, located in areas with a very high probability of seasonal crop moisture deficiency. The identification of drought vulnerability is an essential step in addressing the issue of drought vulnerability in the state and can lead to mitigation-oriented drought management.     

吉林西部季节性气象干旱的时空演化特征

为减轻季节性干旱对吉林西部农业生产造成的影响,以吉林西部6个气象站1957-2010年的月降水量资料为基础,采用标准化降水指数(SPI)作为气象干旱指标。利用Daubechies小波分析法、重标极差分析法(R/S)和干旱频率法对吉林西部SPI时空演化特征进行了研究。结果表明:研究区各站点冬旱整体上有减轻趋势,而秋旱有加重趋势;各站点气象干旱状况呈现出持续性特征,乾安(夏季和秋季)、前郭(夏季)、通榆(春季、夏季和秋季)、长岭(夏季)干旱持续性更加强烈。研究区春旱高频区为扶余,夏旱高频区为扶余和白城,秋旱高频区为白城、通榆、乾安、前郭和长岭,冬旱高频区为扶余、长岭和白城。研究结果可为吉林西部防旱减灾提供参考。     

基于CI指数和K指数的近40a贵州安顺区域干旱演变特征

利用综合气象干旱指数(CI指数)和K干旱指数, 对贵州安顺地区1971-2011年41 a来气象干旱的时空分布状况、演变特征及突变情况进行了比较分析. 结果表明: 对严重的干旱时段, 两种指数均能表现出来, 对历年干旱过程及灾害的评定结果基本一致;CI指数对干旱的评定更为精细, 但K指数延续性更好;分季节的干旱分析中, 两种指数对于夏季出现干旱概率较小的结论一致, 对各季节平均干旱长度的评判基本一致. 对时间演变的线性变化趋势以及M-K检验结果对比分析表明, 春季和秋季干旱强度增强、夏季干旱强度减弱、年度平均干旱长度及春、秋季干旱长度增加的这几个趋势, 两种方法两种指数结果一致, 结论被认为是可信度较高的. M-K曲线检测表明: 年度干旱长度在2008年后为增加的趋势, 20世纪90年代以来春季干旱强度增强, 20世纪末以来夏季干旱强度趋于减轻, 秋季干旱强度增强, 1970年代中期后春季干旱长度有增加的趋势, 秋季干旱长度在20世纪80年代中期到90年代后增加的趋势可能发生了突变. 年度干旱强度存在12~14 a的长周期和年度干旱长度4~6a的短周期较为可信.     

基于概率矩阵的干旱等级变化评估及应用

干旱等级具有多级和跃迁性质,有必要提出一种既能反映不同干旱等级变化特征,又能体现干旱总体变化特征的定量评估方法。通过构建干旱等级变化的概率矩阵,引入变化率乘子和变化程度乘子,推导干旱等级变化率和变化程度计算公式,提出干旱等级变化的综合定量评估方法;借助标准化降水蒸散指数和标准化径流指数,应用于东江流域评估月、季和年尺度的气象干旱向水文干旱传递过程中干旱等级变化及水库影响下水文干旱等级变化。结果表明:①气象干旱向水文干旱传递过程中干旱总体变化程度较小,但干旱等级变化明显,月、季和年尺度的总体变化率分别达到了45.9%、46.8%和34.9%;②干旱在10月下降了约1.4个等级,在春季上升了约1.3个等级;③水库径流调节对于缓解月、季尺度水文干旱作用显著,干旱等级总体变化率均约为33%,其中春季干旱程度下降了约1个等级。该方法不仅适用于评估干旱变化,也可应用于评估具有分级特征的其他灾害变化。     

旱灾风险定量评估总体框架及其关键技术

作为旱灾风险管理的核心内容和关键环节,旱灾风险评估逐渐成为旱灾研究的热点问题。从科学界定旱灾风险概念入手,辨析了干旱风险与旱灾风险之间的关系,并从机理上对旱灾风险形成机制进行了剖析和阐述;首次提出了旱灾风险定量评估总体框架,即通过建立干旱频率~潜在损失~抗旱能力之间的定量关系实现对旱灾风险的定量评估,并探讨了该评估框架所涉及的干旱频率分析技术、灾损评估技术、抗旱能力评估技术和旱灾风险表征技术等关键技术及其难点。     

Drought hazard assessment using geoinformatics over parts of Chotanagpur plateau region, Jharkhand, India

Recurrent drought events in the Palamu district of Jharkhand state and the magnitude of drought losses primarily toward agricultural production in this dominantly monocropped region indicate the continuing susceptibility of the society to drought. This paper presents a method for spatial, geoinformatics-based assessment of agricultural, meteorological, and hydrological drought hazard in Palamu district. It was hypothesized that the key climatic, biophysical and social factors that define agricultural drought hazard were soils, geomorphology, drainage density, land use, and relief, whereas for meteorological drought hazard, it is rainfall, coefficient of variation of rainfall and for hydrological drought hazard, it is lithology, depth to water table, aquifer yield, and surface water bodies. The framework for the derivation of an agricultural, meteorological, and hydrological drought hazard map was created through the development of a numerical weighting scheme to evaluate the drought potential of the classes within each factor. A cumulative map created through spatial join of all the three types of drought provided a drought hazard scenario in totality. The area with different severity of drought hazards under cumulative drought hazards scenario (viz. very low (8.9?%), low (24.2?%), moderate (29.2?%), high (20.13), and very high (17.3?%)) revealed high drought proneness of the area and the usefulness of geoinformatics in better spatial prognosis of drought hazards.     

Quantitative assessment of drought in a lacustrine wetland based on a water balance model

Upstream inflow decline and excessive water withdrawal are the major reasons for failure in maintaining ecological functions of wetlands and could lead to wetland drought and degradation. Quantitative evaluation of wetlands drought constitutes the basis for managing and scheduling water resources and guaranteeing biological safety. In the study, we proposed a Palmer wetland drought index (PWDI) based on the water balance model that describes wetland hydrological characteristics linked to its located basin to describe drought-reflected ecological characteristics in lacustrine Baiyangdian Wetland and compared it with Palmer drought severity index (PDSI). The results presented that PWDI is able to reflect the worst drought in history, and the drought is mainly affected by water stored in the wetland, but PDSI is inadequate for evaluating the wetland drought. The PWDI methodology provides a clear, objective approach for describing the intensity of drought and can be readily adapted to characterize drought on an operational basis.     

An analysis of the drought in Yunnan, China, from a perspective of society drought severity

Drought disaster management entails not only understanding meteorological drought as a natural hazard but also evaluating the adverse societal impacts related to the economy and human lives. For the purpose of quantifying the drought severity from the perspective of society drought, a drought index, namely “Society Drought Severity Index” (SDSI), was put forward to analyze the drought in Yunnan Province of China. In SDSI for Yunnan, the drought severity was represented by the weighted discrepancy between the “appropriate” water needs and the total available water resources, inspired by the established Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Technically, the trend in historical water consumption records in agricultural, industrial, and domestic sectors was applied to represent the appropriate water needs; an apparent “runoff” was used to represent the available water resource in Yunnan. The SDSI of Yunnan revealed a trend toward increasing drought severity, which resulted from a combination of meteorological changes and water needs escalation. Moreover, the spatial center of the 2010 drought in Yunnan based on SDSI was different from that identified by PDSI, which exactly reflected the influence of water needs on drought severity. The SDSI was deemed to be a beneficial tool for drought disaster management and drought risk governance.     

Spatio-temporal Distribution of Three Kinds of Flash Droughts over Agricultural Land in China from 1983 to 2015

At present, flash drought occurs globally and regionally and causes a lot of socio-economic loss in a very short time. Therefore, flash drought has been regarded as one of the hottest issues in drought research. However, flash drought monitoring, prediction and decision-making have encountered a lot of challenges due to its multiple driven factors and complex spatio-temporal process. Aiming at this problem, this paper focused on the agricultural land in China, and analyzed the spatio-temporal distribution of three kinds of flash droughts (i.e., precipitation-deficit, high-temperature, and composite flash droughts) from 1983 to 2015. We studied the occurrences, duration, spatial distribution, temporal distribution, and trend of all three kinds of flash droughts. Our results demonstrated that, the occurrences of flash drought agricultural land in China increased year by year, among which high-temperature flash drought increased dramatically; duration of flash droughts had different trends, but the variations were relatively smooth; Northeast China was identified as a vulnerable area of flash drought, indicating more flash drought events and longer duration; flash droughts in China were found to concentrate in spring (high-temperature drought) and summer seasons (precipitation-deficit drought). This study is helpful for building new flash drought monitoring method and system, and it is also valuable for flash drought preparedness on regional scale.     

Comparisons of drought variability between central High Asia and monsoonal Asia: Inferred from tree rings

Severe drought is a serious natural disaster that frequently strikes East Asia, highlighting the need to understanding its drought regime and the associations with Asian monsoon. Tree-ring-based drought reconstructions provide invaluable paleoclimatic archives for detecting regional and large-scale drought variability and their potential forcings. We herein reviewed many drought reconstructions from central High Asia and monsoonal Asia and compared their similarities and differences, as well as their linkages to Asia monsoon. We compared the decadal-scale variability of six drought reconstructions for the central High Asia, where differing drought variations were found between the western and eastern portions. Seven drought reconstructions were reviewed for monsoonal Asia, from which a difference in drought variability was observed between the northern and southern parts. Therefore, we compared the drought variations of the four sub-regions of western and eastern parts of central High Asia, as well as northern and southern portions of monsoonal Asia. ENSO activity and sea surface temperature of western Pacific and northern Indian Oceans, coupled with Asian monsoon, play an important role in modulating drought variability of much area of the East Asia. An improved denser multi-index tree-ring network of longer length for East Asia is necessary for the establishment of more reliable large-scale drought reconstruction.     

Social perception and response to the drought process: a case study of the drought during 2009–2010 in the Qianxi’nan Prefecture of Guizhou Province

Studies carried out on the drought process, which can be classed as a gradual disaster, can help us to understand the disaster mechanism and offer strategies for disaster prevention. This paper uses the example of the drought in the Qianxi??nan Prefecture of Guizhou Province from July 2009 to May 2010. Data have been collected from government gazetteers, meteorological monitoring data, and field surveys to build up a sequence of meteorological drought indices. The categorization of the victims?? perception of drought impact, and the stages of drought responses of different subjects (government, social organizations, and the public), has also been examined by the same way. By contrasting the differences between the metrological drought indices, and victims?? perception of drought impact, researchers explored the drought cognition features of victims, social response features, and dynamic relationships between drought development and social responses. The results were as follows: The drought evolution process could be divided into 6 phases, and victims?? perception of drought impact could be divided into 7 phases. They were consistent in time period, and the victims?? perception of drought was subjective and based on their direct experiences. Their response has the characteristics of long term and concentration on a time. The responses of government and social organizations obviously fell behind those of victims, but they were effective and intensive in both timescale and effort. As the drought developed, responses shifted from individual to social responses and from practical to economic, political, and technological responses. On the basis of the results, the author has suggested methods of preparing stakeholders against possible drought risks.     

基于copula函数的区域干旱分析方法

提出不同网格干旱等级影响下的区域干旱指数。采用copula函数,建立了区域干旱历时和干旱强度的联合分布,计算联合分布的重现期,并对实际重现期作区间估计。所提出的区域干旱指数能够反映研究区域内发生干旱的严重程度和该区内不同干旱等级所影响面积的大小,且联合分布同时考虑了干旱历时和干旱强度,更全面地反映区域的干旱状况。重庆市2006年干旱实证分析表明,区域干旱指数能够较好地描述本次干旱的发生发展过程,并计算出联合分布的重现期为118年。     

Drought in Australia: Still a problem of perception?

Some 19 years after a prior discussion of the perception of drought in Australia (Geographical Review 1969), in which it was suggested that attitudes to drought in Australia had shown the importance of varying perceptions of the phenomenon, a review of official drought relief policies provides further evidence of continuing ambivalence towards drought and its impacts upon Australian society. The recent emergence of a national policy on drought relief hides considerable and continuing variation between the States in their policies toward the mitigation of drought impacts. This ambivalence and lack of an effective national policy is likely to come under increasing critical scrutiny in the near future, if the current advances in drought forecasting capability continue. More accurate forecasts of drought, however, may raise their own separate problems for the rural community.     

应用模拟技术进行区域干旱分析

根据历史资料,应用干旱模拟模型对旱作物进行了区域农业干旱时空分布规律研究,研究典型干旱年的发生、发展和缓解过程,并对旱情的实时监视、跟踪,可能的灾情评估作了初步探讨。     

Drought Monitoring Using Data Mining Techniques: A Case Study for Nebraska, USA

Drought has an impact on many aspects of society. To help decision makers reduce the impacts of drought, it is important to improve our understanding of the characteristics and relationships of atmospheric and oceanic parameters that cause drought. In this study, the use of data mining techniques is introduced to find associations between drought and several oceanic and climatic indices that could help users in making knowledgeable decisions about drought responses before the drought actually occurs. Data mining techniques enable users to search for hidden patterns and find association rules for target data sets such as drought episodes. These techniques have been used for commercial applications, medical research, and telecommunications, but not for drought. In this study, two time-series data mining algorithms are used in Nebraska to illustrate the identification of the relationships between oceanic parameters and drought indices. The algorithms provide flexibility in time-series analyses and identify drought episodes separate from normal and wet conditions, and find relationships between drought and oceanic indices in a manner different from the traditional statistical associations. The drought episodes were determined based on the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Associations were observed between drought episodes and oceanic and atmospheric indices that include the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI), the Pacific/North American (PNA) index, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index, and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) Index. The experimental results showed that among these indices, the SOI, MEI, and PDO have relatively stronger relationships with drought episodes over selected stations in Nebraska. Moreover, the study suggests that data mining techniques can help us to monitor drought using oceanic indices as a precursor of drought.     

近30年雷州半岛季节性气象干旱时空特征

为进一步分析日尺度有效干旱指数(Effective Drought Index,EDI)的适应性,基于雷州半岛1984~2013年逐日降水资料进行验证,对比EDI和月尺度标准化降水指数(Standardized Precipitation Index,SPI)的干旱识别效果,进而结合线性趋势、M-K趋势检验和空间插值方法 ,分析雷州半岛季节性气象干旱时空特征。结果表明:(1)日尺度EDI和6个月时间尺度SPI(SPI-6)适用于雷州半岛的干旱监测,但EDI对严重干旱和突发干旱的识别比SPI-6更准确;(2)1984~2013年,雷州半岛秋冬季干旱频率和干旱站次比均呈减少趋势,但春夏季干旱频率和干旱站次比略有增加趋势;(3)春旱频率从南向北递增,重旱高频地区位于西北部,而夏季重旱高频区位于西部沿海;秋旱南部重于北部,高频中心在雷中西部沿海和曾家周边;冬季重旱以西部沿海、雷州市和徐闻县交界处频率最高。     

两种判断月干旱过程的方法在黄河流域的对比研究

利用黄河流域160个气象站1961-2010年逐日综合气象干旱指数(CI)指数, 对比分析两种用逐日CI指数判断月干旱过程的方法. 结果表明: 对重大干旱事件个例来说, 两种方法都能大体描述事件的月干旱过程, 但干旱的强度和范围有所不同. 从干旱发生的范围来看, 两种结果的差别较小, 方法I的识别结果范围更大、更连续, 特别是对青海旱情的判断常常比实际范围大;而方法II的识别结果范围稍小, 大体上能反应干旱的整体范围, 但有时也偶尔会遗漏小部分旱区;从干旱发生的强度来看, 方法I对干旱事实的描述偏轻, 而方法II以重-特旱为主, 与实际情况更相符. 从对黄河流域近50 a月干旱频率的分析结果来看, 两种方法一致表明黄河流域分界线以西的地区常年不容易发生干旱, 而对于分界线以东地区, 两种方法的统计结果有较大差异. 方法I的结果表明, 分界线以东地区干旱的月发生频率较大, 其中, 轻旱的月发生频率最大, 其次为中旱, 而重旱和特旱的发生频率很小;方法II的结果表明, 分界线以东地区干旱的月发生频率在60%~80%左右, 其中重旱的月发生频率最大, 其次为中旱, 轻旱和特旱的发生频率很小. 总体来说, 方法II对黄河流域月干旱情况的评估结果与干旱实际情况更一致.