Evolution and drought hazard mapping of future meteorological and hydrological droughts using CMIP6 model

• Published in: Stochastic environmental research and risk assessment 2022-11, Vol.36 (11), p.3857-3874
• Main Authors: Dixit, Soumyashree, Atla, Bindu Madhavi, Jayakumar, K. V.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Chemistry and Earth Sciences; Climate change; Computational Intelligence; Computer Science; Drought; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Environment; General circulation models; Global warming; Hydrologic models; Hydrology; Mapping; Math. Appl. in Environmental Science; Original Paper; Phages; Physics; Precipitation; Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes; Runoff; Soil water; Standardized precipitation index; Statistics for Engineering; Stream discharge; Stream flow; Streamflow generation models; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Weather hazards
• ISSN: 1436-3240; 1436-3259
• DOI: 10.1007/s00477-022-02230-1

Drought characteristics and propagation of droughts have been extensively studied for future climate scenarios, but studies on drought hazard mapping in response to climate change are very limited. This study investigated the possibility and severity of drought hazard based on the meteorological and hydrological properties of the drought under changing climate change scenarios. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used for future streamflow generation. Sixth International Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phage 6 (CMIP6) ensemble General Circulation Models (GCMs) were used to obtain information regarding the future precipitation and streamflow. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) were constructed under different Socioeconomic Shared Pathways (SSPs) to analyse the Drought Hazard Index (DHI) over the basin. The key findings of the study are: (i) hydrological and meteorological drought properties are influenced by precipitation as well as minimum and maximum temperatures; (ii) SRI showed moderate severity and remained nearly constant in all scenarios, while SPI showed a decrease in severity over the watershed; (iii) the drought severity showed regressive declining conditions and a marked decrease under different climate scenarios especially under SSP585 scenario; and (iv) the drought hazard will be lower for future scenarios compared to reference period. A novel insight to explore the drought hazard under global warming scenario is the major contribution of this study.