Assessing droughts using meteorological drought indices in Victoria, Australia
Droughts adversely impact rural and urban communities, industry, primary production and, thus, a country's economy. Drought monitoring is directed to detecting the onset, persistence and severity of the drought. In this study, meteorological drought indices such as the standardized Precipitatio...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
IWA Publishing
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://researchbank.rmit.edu.au/view/rmit:26929 https://researchbank.rmit.edu.au/view/rmit:26929 http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/6973/1/siti_nazahiyah_rahmat_2_U.pdf |
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| Summary: | Droughts adversely impact rural and urban communities, industry, primary production and, thus, a
country's economy. Drought monitoring is directed to detecting the onset, persistence and severity
of the drought. In this study, meteorological drought indices such as the standardized Precipitation
lndex (SPI), the Reconnaissance Drought lndex (RDI) and deciles were assessed to investigate how
well these indices reflect drought conditions in Victoria, Australia. The Theory of Runs was also used
to identify the drought deficit. The study uses 55 years (1955-2010) of monthly precipitation and
reference evapotranspiration data for five selected meteorological stations in Victoria, Australia.
Results show that drought characterization using SPI and RDI provides a standardized classification
of severity thus exhibiting advantages over deciles. As RDI considers both rainfall and potential
evapotranspiration in calculations, it could be sensitive to climatic variability. For characterizing
agricultural droughts, the application of the RDI is recommended. The use of the SPI was shown to be
satisfactory for assessing and monitoring meteorological droughts. The SPI was also successful in
detecting the onset and the end of historical droughts for the selected events. |
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