| Title: | Drought characteristic analysis based on an improved PDSI in the Wei River Basin of China |
| Authors: | Zou, L., J. Xia and D. She |
| Year: | 2017 |
| Journal: | Water |
| Volume (Issue): | 9 |
| Pages: | |
| Article ID: | 178 |
| DOI: | 10.3390/w9030178 |
| URL (non-DOI journals): | |
| Model: | SWAT |
| Broad Application Category: | hydrologic only |
| Primary Application Category: | drought assessment |
| Secondary Application Category: | model and/or data interface |
| Watershed Description: | 134,800 km^2 Wei River, a tributary of the Yellow River located in north central China. |
| Calibration Summary: | |
| Validation Summary: | |
| General Comments: | |
| Abstract: | In this study, to improve the efficiency of the original Palmer Drought Severity Index
(PDSI_original), we coupled the Soil and Water Assessment tool (SWAT) and PDSI_original to
construct a drought index called PDSI_SWAT. The constructed PDSI_SWAT is applied in the
Wei River Basin (WRB) of China during 1960–2012. The comparison of the PDSI_SWAT with four
other commonly used drought indices reveals the effectiveness of the PDSI_SWAT in describing the
drought propagation processes in WRB. The whole WRB exhibits a dry trend, with more significant
trends in the northern, southeastern and western WRB than the remaining regions. Furthermore,
the drought frequencies show that drought seems to occur more likely in the northern part than the
southern part of WRB. The principle component analysis method based on the PDSI_SWAT reveals
that the whole basin can be further divided into three distinct sub-regions with different drought
variability, i.e., the northern, southeastern and western part. Additionally, these three sub-regions
are also consistent with the spatial pattern of drought shown by the drought frequency. The wavelet
transform analysis method indicates that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events have strong
impacts on inducing droughts in the WRB. The results of this study could be beneficial for a scientific
water resources management and drought assessment in the current study area and also provide a
valuable reference for other areas with similar climatic characteristics |
| Language: | English |
| Keywords: | drought variability; SWAT model; principal component analysis; wavelet transform;
Wei River Basin |