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Fortnightly Standardized Precipitation Index trend analysis for drought characterization in India

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Abstract

Climate change is a major concern, as it profoundly affects many facets of our lives. It has brought about several issues, including declining water supply, reduced agricultural yields, increased drought occurrences, and increased heat waves. Amidst these challenges, the influence of short-term drought events on plant growth and irrigation schedule emerges as a critical concern. However, despite these evident consequences, a nuanced understanding of the intricate relationship between the severity and duration of short-period drought/deficit events still needs to be explored. This paper analyses fortnightly water deficit periods over different regions of India, which would be more relevant to re-scheduling the irrigation events than monthly or longer duration in preventing crops from reaching the permanent wilting point. Hence, this work considers analyzing 15-day Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) trends and drought characteristics using conventional methods and Innovative Trend Analysis (ITA) techniques. The analysis uses gridded rainfall data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which has a spatial resolution of 0.250-E and 0.250-N. The data spans the period from 1970 to 2021. The ITA and Mann Kendall (MK) displayed nearly identical areas of increasing and decreasing trends, but ITA effectively identified significant trends. While MK and Modified Mann Kendall (MMK) could only indicate significant trends for 12.94%, 9.57%, and 9.9% of grid points for SPI, drought severity, and duration, respectively, ITA was able to identify significant trends at 44.31%, 10.9%, and 10.1% on an annual scale. The ITA method effectively identified the significant trends and magnitudes of fortnightly SPI and drought characteristics. The Tropical monsoon (Am), Tropical savannah (Aw), Arid desert hot (BWh), Arid steppe hot (BSh), and Temperate dry winter warm summer (Cwb) climatic zones have shown a significant increase in annual drought severity. Similarly, a significant increase in monsoon drought severity is observed across several states, including Gujarat and Mizoram, impacting diverse geographic extents. The present study can help policymakers and water resource managers decide on water allocation, irrigation, and crop management practices.

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Data availability

The data used in the study is accessible freely from the source mentioned in the manuscript. However, codes related to the study are available with the corresponding author and are made available on reasonable request.

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The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Water Resources and Ocean Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, Mangaluru, Karnataka, 575025, India

    Besty Benny, Degavath Vinod & Amai Mahesha

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  1. Besty Benny
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  2. Degavath Vinod
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Contributions

Besty Benny and Degavath Vinod contributed equally to this work. They collaborated on writing the manuscript, preparing the figures, conducting preliminary data analysis, and investigating the methodology. They actively participated in all aspects of the research and significantly contributed to the project.

Amai Mahesha played a pivotal role in framing the objectives and providing the initial concept for the study. Amai Mahesha also critically reviewed the manuscript, providing valuable insights and feedback to enhance the overall quality of the research.

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Correspondence to Degavath Vinod.

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Benny, B., Vinod, D. & Mahesha, A. Fortnightly Standardized Precipitation Index trend analysis for drought characterization in India. Theor Appl Climatol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-024-04905-x

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