Spatio-temporal variability of droughts in the North Pacific Basin of México (1961-2010)

Authors

  • L. Serrano-Barrios Colegio de Postgraduados
  • S. M. Vicente-Serrano Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (CSIC)
  • H. Flores-Magdaleno Colegio de Postgraduados
  • L. Tijerina-Chávez Colegio de Postgraduados
  • D. Vázquez-Soto Colegio de Postgraduados

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/cig.2857

Keywords:

Drought, Standardized Precipitation Index, Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, temporal evolution, spatial differences, trends

Abstract

This article analyses the spatio-temporal variability of droughts in the North Pacific Basin of México between 1961 and 2010, using two drought indices: the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). We used data from 48 weather stations with available data of precipitation and monthly minimum and maximum temperature. In 22 of the weather stations, time series of Piché evaporation were also available. The reference evapotranspiration, necessary to obtain the SPEI, was calculated by means of the Hargreaves equation. Results show that major droughts occurred in the 1980s and 2000s, although there is a noticeable spatial variability across the region. Finally, the potential impact of the atmospheric evaporative demand on drought severity observed by the different drought indices is discussed, and the possible implications for an appropriate risk assessment.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

L. Serrano-Barrios, Colegio de Postgraduados

HDROCIENCIAS. ESTUDIANTE DE MAESTRIA

References

Allen, C.D., Breshears, D.D., McDowell, N.G. 2015. On underestimation of global vulnerability to tree mortality and forest die-off from hotter drought in the Anthropocene. Ecosphere 6, 129.

Azorin-Molina, C. Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Sánchez-Lorenzo, A., McVicar, T.R., Morán-Tejeda, E., Revuelto, J., El Kenawy, A., Martín-Hernández, N., Tomás-Bruguera, M. 2015. Atmospheric evaporative demand observations, estimates and driving factors in Spain (1961-2011). Journal of Hydrology 523: 262-277.

Beguería, S., Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Reig, F., Latorre, B. 2014. Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) revisited: parameter fitting, evapotranspiration models, kernel weighting, tools, datasets and drought monitoring. International Journal of Climatology 34, 3001–3023.

Bhattacharya, T., Chiang, J.C.H. 2014. Spatial variability and mechanisms underlying El Niño-induced droughts in Mexico. Climate Dynamics 43, 3309-3326.

Brázdil, R., Trnka, M., Mikšovský, J., Řezníčková, L., Dobrovolný, P. 2015. Spring-summer droughts in the Czech Land in 1805-2012 and their forcings. International Journal of Climatology 35, 1405-1421.

Briffa, K.R., Jones, P.D., Hulme, M., 1994. Summer moisture variability across Europe, 1892-1991: an analysis based on the Palmer drought severity index. International Journal of Climatology 14: 475-506.

CONAGUA 2010. Estadísticas del Agua en México, edición 2010. México. http://www.conagua.gob.mx/CONAGUA07/Noticias/EAM2010.pdf.

CONAPO 2014. Proyección de la población 2010-2050. http://www.conapo.gob.mx/es/CONAPO/Proyecciones.

Curtis, J.H., Hodell, D.A., Brenner, M. 1996. Climate variability on the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico) during the past 3500 years, and implications for Maya cultural evolution. Quaternary Research 46, 37-47.

Dai, A., 2013. Increasing drought under global warming in observations and models. Nature Climate Change 3, 52–58.

Douriet J.C., 2013. Pronóstico de Sequías en la Cuenca del río Culiacán, Sinaloa, México. V Convención Cubana de Ciencias de la Tierra (Geociencias 2013), Palacio de Convenciones, La Habana.

Dracup, J.A., Lee, K., Paulson, E.G. 1980. On the definition of droughts. Water Resources Research 16, 297-302.

Droogers, P., Allen, R.G. 2002. Estimating reference evapotranspiration under inaccurate data conditions. Irrigation and Drainage Systems 16, 33–45.

Feng, S., Hu, Q., Qian, W. 2004. Quality control of daily meteorological data in China, 1951-2000: A new dataset. International Journal of Climatology 24, 853-870.

Guttman, N.B. 1999: Accepting the standardized precipitation index: A calculation algorithm. J. Amer. Water Resour. Assoc. 35, 311–322.

Hargreaves, G.L., Samani, Z.A. 1985. Reference crop evapotranspiration from temperature. Appl. Eng. Agric. 1, 96–99.

Hodell, D.A., Brenner, M., Curtis, J.H., Guilderson, T. 2001. Solar forcing of drought frequency in the Maya lowlands. Science 292, 1367-1370.

Huth, R. 2006. The effect of various methodological options on the detection of leading modes of sea level pressure variability, Tellus, Ser. A 58, 121–130.

Johnson, F., Sharma, A. 2007. Estimating evaporation – issues and challenges. In: MODSIM07 – Land, Water and Environmental Management: Integrated Systems for Sustainability, Proceedings, pp. 589–595.

Jones PD, Hulme M. 1996. Calculating regional climatic time series for temperature and precipitation: methods and illustrations. International Journal of Climatology 16, 361–377.

Laliberte, A.S., Rango, A., Havstad, K., Paris, J.F., Becke, R.F., Amalia, L.G. 2004. Object-oriented image analysis for mapping shrub encroachment from 1937 to 2003 in southern New Mexico. Remote Sensing of Environment 93, 198-210.

Lanzante, J.R. 1996. Resistant, robust and non-parametric techniques for the analysis of climate data: theory and examples, including applications to historical radiosonde station data. International Journal of Climatology 16, 1197–1226.

Lloyd-Hughes, B. 2014. The impracticality of a universal drought definition. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 117, 607-611.

Lobell, D.B., Hammer, G.L., McLean, G., Messina, C., Roberts, M.J., Schlenker, W. 2013. The critical role of extreme heat for maize production in the United States. Nature Climate Change 3, 497-501.

Kaiser, H.E. 1958. The varimax criterion for analytic rotation in factor analysis. Psikometria 23, 187-200.

Magaña, V., Amador, J.A., Medina, S. 1999. The midsummer drought over Mexico and Central America. Journal of Climate 12, 1577-1588.

McKee, T.B.N., Doesken, J., Kleist, J., 1993. The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales. Eight Conf. on Applied Climatology. Anaheim, CA, Amer. Meteor. Soc. pp. 179–184.

McVicar, T.R., Roderick, M.L., Donohue, R.J., Van Niel, T.G. 2012. Less bluster ahead? Ecohydrological implications of global trends of terrestrial near-surface wind speeds. Ecohydrology 5, 381–388.

Méndez, M., Magaña, V. 2010. Regional aspects of prolonged meteorological droughts over Mexico and Central America. Journal of Climate 23, 1175-1188.

Mendoza, B., Velasco, V., Jáuregui, E. 2006. A study of historical droughts in southeastern Mexico. Journal of Climate 19, 2916-2934.

Mestre, O., Domokos, P., Picard, F., Aver, I., Robin, S., Lebarbier, E., Bohm, R., Aguilar, E., Guijarro, J., Vertachnik, G., Klancar, M., Dubuisson, B., Stepanek, P. 2013. HOMER: a homogenization software – methods and applications. Quart. Jour. of the Hungarian Meteorological Service 117, 47-67.

Mishra, A.K., Singh, V.P. 2010. A review of drought concepts. Journal of Hydrology 391, 202–216.

Mulholland, P.J., Best, G.R., Coutant, C.C., Hornberger, G.M., Meyer, J.L., Robinson, P.J. 1997. Effects of climate change on freshwater ecosystems of the south-eastern United States and the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Hydrological Processes 11, 949-970.

Nam, W.H., Hayes, M.J., Svoboda, M.D., Tadesse, T., Wilhite, D.A. 2015. Drought hazard assessment in the context of climate change for South Korea. Agricultural Water Management 160, 106-117.

Pavia, E.G., Graef, F., Reyes, J. 2009. Annual and seasonal surface air temperature trends in Mexico. International Journal of Climatology 29: 1324-1329.

Potop, V., Boroneanţ, C., Možný, M., Štěpánek, P., Skalák, P. 2014. Observed spatiotemporal characteristics of drought on various time scales over the Czech Republic. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 115, 563-581.

Ravelo, A.C., Sanz, R., Douriet, J.C. 2014. Detección, evaluación y pronóstico de las sequías en la región del Organismo de Cuenca Pacífico Norte, México. Agriscientia 31, 11-24.

Richman, M.B. 1986. Rotation of Principal Components. Journal of Climatology 6, 29-35.

Roderick, M.L., Farquhar, G.D. 2002. The cause of decreased pan evaporation over the past 50 years. Science 298, 1410–1411.

Sánchez-Lorenzo, A., Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Wild, M., Calbó, J., Azorin-Molina, C., Peñuelas, J. 2014. Evaporation trends in Spain: a comparison of Class A pan and Piché atmometer measurements. Climate Research 61, 269–280.

Seager, R., Ting, M., Davis, M., Cane, M., Naik, N., Nakamura, J., Li, C., Cook, E., Stahle, D.W. 2009. Mexican drought: An observational modeling and tree ring study of variability and climate change. Atmosfera 22 1-31.

Seager, R., Vecchi, G.A. 2010. Greenhouse warming and the 21st century hydroclimate of southwestern North America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, 21277-21282.

Serrano, A., Garcıacute, J., Mateos, V., Cancillo, M.L., Garrido, J. 1999. Monthly modes of variation of precipitation over the Iberian Peninsula, Journal of Climate 12, 2894–2919.

Sheffield, J., Wood, E.J., Roderick, M.L. 2012. Little change in global drought over the past 60 years. Nature 491, 435–438.

Trenberth, K.E., Guillemot, C.J. 1996. Physical processes involved in the 1988 drought and 1993 floods in North America. Journal of Climate 9, 1288-1298.

Trenberth, K.E., Dai, A., van der Schrier, G., Jones, P.D., Barichivich, J., Briffa, K.R., Sheffield, J. 2014. Global warming and changes in drought. Nature Climate Change 4, 17–22.

Venema, V.K.C., Mestre, O., Aguilar, E., Auer, I., Guijarro, J.A., Domonkos, P., Vertacnik, G., Szentimrey, T., Stepanek, P., Zahradniek, P., Viarre, J., Müller-Westermeier, G., Lakatos, M., Williams, C.N., Menne, M.J., Lindau, R., Rasol, D., Rustemeier, E., Kolokythas, K., Marinova, T., Andresen, L., Acquaotta, F., Fratianni, S., Cheval, S., Klancar, M., Brunetti, M., Gruber, C., Prohom Duran, M., Likso, T., Esteban, P., Brandsma, T. 2012. Benchmarking homogenization algorithms for monthly data. Climate of the Past 8, 89-115.

Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Begueria, S., López-Moreno, J.I.. 2010. A multi-scalar drought index sensitive to global warming: the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index – SPEI. Journal of Climate 23, 1696-1718.

Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Beguería, S., López-Moreno, J.I., García-Vera, M.A., Stepanek, P. 2010b. A complete daily precipitation database for North-East Spain: reconstruction, quality control and homogeneity. International Journal of Climatology 30, 1146-1163.

Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Beguería, S., López-Moreno, J.I. 2011. Comment on “Characteristics and trends in various forms of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) during 1900-2008” by A. Dai. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmosphere. 116, D19112, doi:10.1029/2011JD016410.

Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Beguería, S., Lorenzo-Lacruz, J. 2012. Performance of drought indices for ecological, agricultural and hydrological applications. Earth Interactions 16, 1–27.

Vicente-Serrano, S.M., López–Moreno, J.I., Beguería, S., Lorenzo-Lacruz, J., Sánchez-Lorenzo, A., García-Ruiz, J.M., Azorín-Molina, C., Morán-Tejeda, E., Revuelto, J., Trigo, R., Coleho, F., Espejo, F. 2014. Evidence of increasing drought severity caused by temperature rise in southern Europe. Environmental Research Letters 9, 044001. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/9/4/044001.

Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Van der Schrier, G., Beguería, S., Azorin–Molina, C., Lopez–Moreno, J.I. 2015. Contribution of precipitation and reference evapotranspiration to drought indices under different climates. Journal of Hydrology 426, 42-54.

Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Chura, O., López-Moreno, J.I., Azorín-Molina, C., Sánchez-Lorenzo, A., Aguilar, E., Morán-Tejeda, E., Trujillo, F., Martínez, R., Nieto, J.J. 2015b. Spatio-temporal variability of droughts in Bolivia: 1955-2012. International Journal of Climatology 35, 3024-3040.

Wang, W., Zhu, Y., Xu, R., Liu, J. 2014. Drought severity change in China during 1961–2012 indicated by SPI and SPEI. Natural Hazards 75, 2437-2451.

White, D., Richman, H., Yarnal, B. 1991. Climate regionalization and rotation of principal components. International Journal of Climatology 11, 1-25.

Wilhite, D.A., Glantz. M.H. 1985. Understanding the Drought Phenomenon: the role or definitions. Water International 10, 111-120.

Wilhite. D.A. 2000. Drougth as Natural Hazard: Concepts and Definitions. In: Wilhite , D.A. (Ed). Drought: an Assessment. Volume I. Routledge, New York, pp 3-18.

Yu, M., Li, Q., Hayes, M.J., Svoboda, M.D., Heim, R.R. 2014. Are droughts becoming more frequent or severe in China based on the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index: 1951-2010? International Journal of Climatology 34, 545–558.

Published

27-06-2016

How to Cite

1.
Serrano-Barrios L, Vicente-Serrano SM, Flores-Magdaleno H, Tijerina-Chávez L, Vázquez-Soto D. Spatio-temporal variability of droughts in the North Pacific Basin of México (1961-2010). CIG [Internet]. 2016 Jun. 27 [cited 2024 Mar. 29];42(1):185-204. Available from: https://publicaciones.unirioja.es/ojs/index.php/cig/article/view/2857

Issue

Section

Articles