Water Surplus Variability Index as an Indicator of Drought
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 20, Issue 2
Abstract
Drought assessment requires considering not only precipitation but also the other meteorological parameters such as an evapotranspiration. This paper presents the water surplus variability index (WSVI) as an indicator of drought. The calculation procedure incorporates both precipitation and reference evapotranspiration through the estimation of water surplus at different timescales. The WSVI is compared with the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the reconnaissance drought index (RDI) based on 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month timescales using data from four weather stations located in humid and subhumid climate. To approve the proposed procedure, the graphical and statistical tools such as the scatter plots, the linear trend, the coefficient of determination , the index of agreement , and the Pearson correlation coefficient were applied. The WSVI was highly correlated with both the RDI and the SPI whereas . Moreover, is greater than 0.93 which indicates near perfect agreement between the WSVI and both the SPI and the RDI. This supports the opinion that the WSVI is capable to quantify drought episodes and duration, identified by the SPI and the RDI.
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Acknowledgments
The paper is supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development, Republic of Serbia (Grant No. TR37003). The associate editor and two anonymous referees are thanked for valuable comments and constructive suggestions that helped improve the final version of the paper.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 20 • Issue 2 • February 2015
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 1, 2013
Accepted: Apr 3, 2014
Published online: Apr 4, 2014
Discussion open until: Dec 22, 2014
Published in print: Feb 1, 2015
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