Modified Palmer Drought Severity Index: Model improvement and application
HuiqianYu, Qiang Zhang, Chong-Yu Xu, Juan Du, Peng Sun, Pan Hu
[HuiqianYu, Qiang Zhang, Juan Du, Pan Hu] Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster, Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
[HuiqianYu, Qiang Zhang, Juan Du, Pan Hu] Faculty of Geographical Science, Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Emergency Management, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
[HuiqianYu, Qiang Zhang, Juan Du, Pan Hu] State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resources Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
[HuiqianYu, Qiang Zhang, Juan Du, Pan Hu] Center for Human-Environment System Sustainability (CHESS), State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology (ESPRE), Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
[Chong-Yu Xu] Department of Geosciences, Oslo University, Blindern, 0316, Oslo, Norway.
[Peng Sun] College of Territorial Resource and Tourism, Anhui Normal University, Anhui 241002, China.
Abstract:Monitoring of droughts is the first step into human adaptation and related management of drought hazards. Therefore, drought index is critical in drought monitoring practice. However, the standing drought indices include no information about agricultural irrigation. In this case, based on the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and the Self-Calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (sc-PDSI), here we proposed the Modified Palmer Drought Severity Index (MPDSI) by considering agricultural irrigation such as irrigation quotas and soil water deficits. We compared changes of droughts monitored by MPDSI and other drought indices considered in this study, and found that MPDSI can well monitor drought conditions in irrigated regions. In this sense, MPDSI can monitor the actual drought conditions under human influences such as irrigation. Besides, we also found that MPDSI can well lessen overestimation of drought conditions by PDSI in terms of drought duration and drought intensity. Therefore, we can conclude that MPDSI can be accepted in drought monitoring practice across China. It should be noted here that the idea behind development of MPDSI and also the MDPSI proposed in this study can be well referenced in drought monitoring in other regions of the globe.
Published in: Environment International, 2019,130:104951. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2019.104951.
