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Assessing the capability of multi‐scale drought datasets to quantify drought severity and to identify drought impacts: an example in the Ebro Basin
Author(s) -
MoránTejeda Enrique,
Ceglar Andrej,
MedvedCvikl Barbara,
VicenteSerrano Sergio M.,
LópezMoreno Juan I.,
GonzálezHidalgo José C.,
Revuelto Jesús,
LorenzoLacruz Jorge,
Camarero Julio,
Pasho Edmond
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.3555
Subject(s) - environmental science , precipitation , climatology , scale (ratio) , preparedness , spatial ecology , temporal scales , water resources , spatial variability , environmental resource management , physical geography , geography , meteorology , cartography , statistics , ecology , geology , mathematics , political science , law , biology
Assessing the risk, the severity and the likely evolution of droughts are key tasks for improving preparedness of regions prone to drought conditions, and mitigation of drought consequences. The access to real‐time and high‐quality climatic information is essential for this purpose. Different climatic databases are being developed and made available on real time by climatic research institutions, but their capability for quantifying droughts characteristics including severity, or spatio‐temporal variability, is uncertain given their low spatial resolution. In this study, we assessed the capability of three databases with contrasted spatial resolution for measuring spatial and temporal variability of drought occurrence. The standardized precipitation index, calculated for each database, showed that the low resolution datasets allow an acceptable measurement of the magnitude, intensity and duration of droughts, while failing mostly in detecting the spatial patterns of the specific drought episodes. Moreover, the capability of the datasets for assessing the impacts of droughts on surface hydrology and tree growth was examined. Results confirmed the usefulness of the drought index for assessing drought impacts on water resources and forest ecosystems even when low resolution databases are used. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society