Drought analysis in Jordan under current and future climates |
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Authors: | Mohammed I Al-Qinna Nezar A Hammouri Mutewekil M Obeidat Fayez Y Ahmad |
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Institution: | (1) National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, India;(2) College of Technology and Engineering, Udaipur, India;(3) Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India |
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Abstract: | Droughts have adverse socioeconomic, agricultural, and environmental impacts that can be reduced by assessing and forecasting
drought behavior. The paper presents detailed analyses of both meteorological and vegetative droughts over the period from
1970 to 2005. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) have been used to quantify
drought according to severity, magnitude and spatial distribution at the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Results suggest that
the country faced during the past 35 years frequent non-uniform drought periods in an irregular repetitive manner. Drought
severity, magnitudes and life span increased with time from normal to extreme levels especially at last decade reaching magnitudes
of more than 4. Generated NDVI maps spatial analyses estimate crop-area percentage damage due to severe and extremely severe
drought events occurred during October, December, and February of 2000 to be about 10%, 45%, and 30%, respectively. In response
to drought spatial extent, the paper suggest the presence of two drought types, local drought acting on one or more geographical
climatic parts and national drought, of less common but more severe, that extend over the whole country. Droughts in Jordan
act intensively during January, February and March and tend to shift position with time by alternative migrations from southern
desert parts to northern desert parts and from the eastern desert parts to highlands and Jordan Rift Valley (JRV) at the west.
The paper also investigates the potential use of Global Climate Model’s (GCM) to forecast future drought events from 2010
till 2040. Tukey HSD test indicates that ECHAM5OM GCM is capable to predicted rainfall variation at the country and suggests
future droughts to become more intensive at the northern and southern desserts with 15% rainfall reduction factor, followed
by 10% reduction at the JRV, and 5% at the highlands. |
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