Assessment of trends, variability and impacts of droughts across Brazil over the period 1980–2019

Drought indices are a numerical representation of drought conditions aimed to provide quantitative assessments of the magnitude, spatial extent, timing, and duration of drought events. Since the adverse effects of droughts vary according to the characteristics of the event, the socioeconomic vulnera...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Natural hazards (Dordrecht) 2023-03, Vol.116 (2), p.2173-2190
Main Authors: Tomasella, Javier, Cunha, Ana Paula M. A., Simões, Paloma Angelina, Zeri, Marcelo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Civil Engineering
Drought
Drought conditions
Drought index
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Energy security
Environmental impact
Environmental Management
Evaporation
Evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration-precipitation relationships
Geophysics/Geodesy
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
High temperature
Hydrogeology
Meteorological information
Natural Hazards
Original Paper
Precipitation
Security
Spatial analysis
Standardized precipitation index
Statistical analysis
Time
Trends
Weather station data
Weather stations
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Summary:Drought indices are a numerical representation of drought conditions aimed to provide quantitative assessments of the magnitude, spatial extent, timing, and duration of drought events. Since the adverse effects of droughts vary according to the characteristics of the event, the socioeconomic vulnerabilities, exposed communities or environments, there is a profusion of drought indicators to assess drought impacts in different sectors. In this study, we evaluated the performance of two drought indices, the Standardized Precipitation Index—SPI and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index—SPEI over Brazil derived from gridded meteorological information over the period 1980–2019. Firstly, we compared the gridded derived indices against the same indices derived from weather station data and available from a global dataset for time scales of 3, 6, 12, 24 months. Then we analyzed the spatio-temporal trends in SPI and SPEI time-series, which revealed statistically significant trends toward drier conditions across central Brazil for all time scales, though with more intensity for time scales of 12 months and larger. Trends were more significant in magnitude for SPEI than SPI, indicating an important role in the increase in evaporation, driven by increasingly higher temperatures. Finally, we demonstrated that climate signals are already having a disruptive effect on the country's energy security.
ISSN:0921-030X
1573-0840
DOI:10.1007/s11069-022-05759-0