Spatial and temporal variations in the accuracy of meteorological drought indices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18172/cig.2916Keywords:
mapping drought indices, spatial and temporal variation, accuracyAbstract
Meteorological drought indices are commonly calculated using data from weather stations and then interpolated to create a map of moisture conditions. These maps are used to communicate drought information to decision makers and the general public. This study analyzes five of the factors (drought index, interpolation method, seasonality, climate region, and station density) that influence the accuracy of these maps. This study compared the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) using data from the Cooperative Observer Network (COOP) and United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN). The accuracy of the drought maps varied significantly over time and space. The most significant factor affecting the accuracy of the meteorological drought maps was seasonality. Errors were higher in regions (e.g., southeastern U.S.), and months (e.g., summer), dominated by convective precipitation. The choice of interpolation method also had an influence. We found that Ordinary Kriging (OK) performed better than Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) in all cases and therefore it was recommended for interpolating drought indices. Not surprisingly, maps that were created using more stations (COOP) were more accurate. The normalized errors of SPI and SPEI were very similar and so the choice of drought index had little impact on the accuracy of the drought maps.
Downloads
References
Adams, D.K., Comrie, A.C. 1997. The North American Monsoon. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78 (10), 2197-2213.
Akhtari, R., Morid, S., Mahdian, M.H., Smakhtin, V. 2009. Assessment of areal interpolation methods for spatial analysis of SPI and EDI drought indices. International Journal of Climatology 29( 1), 135-145.
Ali, M.G., Younes, K., Esmaeil, A., Fatemeh, T. 2011. Assessment of geostatistical methods for spatial analysis of SPI and EDI drought indices. World Applied Sciences Journal 15 (4), 474-482.
Ashley, W.S., Mote, T.L., Dixon, P.G., Trotter, S.L., Powell, E.J., Durkee, J.D., Grundstein, A.J. 2003. Distribution of Mesoscale Convective Complex Rainfall in the United States. Monthly Weather Review 131 (12), 3003-3017.
Byun, H.R., Wilhite, D.A. 1999. Objective Quantification of Drought Severity and Duration. Journal of Climate 12 (9), 2747-2756.
Carbone, G.J., Rhee, J., Mizzell, H.P., Boyles, R. 2008. Decision support: A Regional-Scale Drought Monitoring Tool for the Carolinas. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 89 (1), 20-28.
Dai, A. 2011. Drought under global warming: a review. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 2( 1), 45-65.
Guttman, N.B. 1999. Accepting the Standardized Precipitation Index: A calculation algorithm. JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association 35 (2), 311-322.
Heim, R.R. 2002. A Review of Twentieth-Century Drought Indices Used in the United States. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 83 (8), 1149-1165.
Husak, G.J., Michaelsen, J., Funk, C. 2007. Use of the gamma distribution to represent monthly rainfall in Africa for drought monitoring applications. International Journal of Climatology 27 (7), 935-944.
Isaaks, E.H., Srivastava, R.ºM. 1989. An introduction to applied geostatistics. Oxford University Press. Oxford, New York, 400 pp.
Jain, V.K., Pandey, R.P., Jain, M.K., Byun, H.R. 2015. Comparison of drought indices for appraisal of drought characteristics in the Ken River Basin. Weather and Climate Extremes 8, 1-11.
Kaplan, A., Kushnir, Y., Cane, M.A. 2000. Reduced Space Optimal Interpolation of Historical Marine Sea Level Pressure: 1854–1992*. Journal of Climate 13 (16), 2987-3002.
Karl, T.R. 1983. Some Spatial Characteristics of Drought Duration in the United States. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology 22(8): 1356-1366.
Keyantash, J., Dracup, J.A. 2002. The Quantification of Drought: An Evaluation of Drought Indices. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 83 (8), 1167-1180.
Larson, J., Zhou, Y., Higgins, R.W. 2005. Characteristics of Landfalling Tropical Cyclones in the United States and Mexico: Climatology and Interannual Variability. Journal of Climate 18 (8), 1247-1262.
Lawrimore, J., Heim, R.R., Svoboda, M., Swail, V., Englehart, P.J. 2002. Beginning a New Era of Drought Monitoring Across North America. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 83 (8), 1191-1192.
Legates, D.R. 1991. An evaluation of procedures to estimate monthly precipitation probabilities. Journal of Hydrology 122 (1), 129-140.
Li, J., Heap, A.D. 2011. A review of comparative studies of spatial interpolation methods in environmental sciences: Performance and impact factors. Ecological Informatics 6 (3–4), 228-241.
McEvoy, D.J., Huntington, J.L., Abatzoglou, J.T., Edwards, L.M. 2012. An Evaluation of Multiscalar Drought Indices in Nevada and Eastern California. Earth Interactions 16 (18), 1-18.
Menne, M.J., Williams, C.N., Vose, R.S. 2009. The U.S. Historical Climatology Network Monthly Temperature Data, Version 2. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 90 (7), 993-1007.
Mo, K.C., Long, L.N., Xia, Y., Yang, S.K., Schemm, J.E., Ek, M. 2010. Drought Indices Based on the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis and Ensemble NLDAS. Journal of Hydrometeorology 12 (2), 181-205.
Morid, S., Smakhtin, V., Moghaddasi, M. 2006. Comparison of seven meteorological indices for drought monitoring in Iran. International Journal of Climatology 26 (7), 971-985.
Murray, J.C., Colle, B.A. 2010. The Spatial and Temporal Variability of Convective Storms over the Northeast United States during the Warm Season. Monthly Weather Review 139 (3), 992-1012.
Naumann, G., Dutra, E., Barbosa, P., Pappenberger, F., Wetterhall, F. and Vogt, J.V. 2014. Comparison of drought indicators derived from multiple data sets over Africa. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 18 (5), 1625-1640.
Palmer, W.C. 1965. Meteorological Drought. 58 pp. U.S. Weather Bureau. Washington, D.C.
Quiring, S.M. 2009. Monitoring Drought: An Evaluation of Meteorological Drought Indices. Geography Compass 3 (1), 64-88.
Rhee, J., Carbone, G.J., Hussey, J. 2008. Drought Index Mapping at Different Spatial Units. Journal of Hydrometeorology 9 (6), 1523-1534.
Sheffield, J., Wood, E.F., Roderick, M.L. 2012. Little change in global drought over the past 60 years. Nature 491 (7424), 435-438.
Shuttleworth, W.J., Wallace, J.S. 1985. Evaporation from sparse crops-an energy combination theory. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 111 (469), 839-855.
Steinemann, A., Iacobellis, S.F., Cayan, D.R. 2015. Developing and Evaluating Drought Indicators for Decision-Making. Journal of Hydrometeorology 16 (4), 1793-1803.
Thornthwaite, C.W. 1948. An Approach toward a Rational Classification of Climate. Geographical Review 38 (1), 55-94.
Tucker, C.J. 1989. Comparing SMMR and AVHRR data for drought monitoring. International Journal of Remote Sensing 10 (10), 1663-1672.
Velasco, I., Fritsch, J.M. 1987. Mesoscale convective complexes in the Americas. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 92 (D8), 9591-9613.
Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Beguería, S., López-Moreno, J.I. 2009. A Multiscalar Drought Index Sensitive to Global Warming: The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index. Journal of Climate 23 (7), 1696-1718.
Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Beguería, S., López-Moreno, J.I., Angulo, M., El Kenawy, A. 2010. A New Global 0.5° Gridded Dataset (1901–2006) of a Multiscalar Drought Index: Comparison with Current Drought Index Datasets Based on the Palmer Drought Severity Index. Journal of Hydrometeorology 11 (4), 1033-1043.
Wu, H., Svoboda, M.D., Hayes, M.J., Wilhite, D.A., Wen, F. 2007. Appropriate application of the standardized precipitation index in arid locations and dry seasons. International Journal of Climatology 27 (1), 65-79.
Yuan, S., Quiring, S.M. 2014. Drought in the U.S. Great Plains (1980–2012): A sensitivity study using different methods for estimating potential evapotranspiration in the Palmer Drought Severity Index. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 119 (19), 10996-11010.
Zarafshani, K., Sharafi, L., Azadi, H., Hosseininia, G., De Maeyer, P., Witlox, F. 2012. Drought vulnerability assessment: The case of wheat farmers in Western Iran. Global and Planetary Change 98–99, 122-130.
Zhou, L., Zhang, J., Wu, J., Zhao, L., Liu, M., Lü, A., Wu, Z. 2011. Comparison of remotely sensed and meteorological data-derived drought indices in mid-eastern China. International Journal of Remote Sensing 33 (6), 1755-1779.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The authors retain copyright of articles and authorize Cuadernos de Investigación Geográfica / Geographical Research Letters the first publication. They are free to share and redistribute the article without obtaining permission from the publisher as long as they give appropriate credit to the editor and the journal.
Self-archiving is allowed too. In fact, it is recommendable to deposit a PDF version of the paper in academic and/or institutional repositories.
It is recommended to include the DOI number.
This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
