Assessing the Propagation from Meteorological to Hydrological Drought in the São Francisco River Catchment with Standardized Indexes: Exploratory Analysis, Influential Factors, and Forecasting Strategies
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 147, Issue 11
Abstract
Droughts are recurrent natural hazards that can strongly affect human activities and the natural dynamics of ecosystems. Strategies for drought risk management and mitigation depend on how rainfall shortages translate into water deficits in soil, streams, and aquifers. From this perspective, this paper investigates, with the use of standardized drought indexes, the propagation mechanisms from meteorological to hydrological droughts in the São Francisco River catchment, providing an assessment of the times of propagation and of influential physical and climatological factors. In addition, we explore a potential framework for predicting the times of propagation in locations with no streamflow information. The study results demonstrated that, while no marked distinctions in the meteorological drought statistics are verified across the study region, spatial patterns are observed in those of hydrological droughts, implying different mechanisms for drought propagation. Moreover, the prediction models demonstrated acceptable capacity, despite the complexity of the propagation physical processes. Hence, notwithstanding some modeling limitations, the proposed approach may constitute a useful auxiliary tool for hydrological drought forecasting and early warning at regional scale.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge support for this research from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG). The authors also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their valuable comments and suggestions, which greatly helped improve the paper.
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Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 147 • Issue 11 • November 2021
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Oct 2, 2020
Accepted: Jun 23, 2021
Published online: Aug 26, 2021
Published in print: Nov 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jan 26, 2022
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