Abstract
Drought is a complex phenomenon that strong indices should be used to quantifying it. Reconnaissance drought index (RDI) is very strong index that extensively used in drought investigating researches. Major problem to calculate this index especially in arid and semi-arid regions at undeveloped countries is lack of data for calculating evapotranspiration. This study investigated this problem’s solution via simulating monthly RDI using other indices (PN, DI, SPI, CZI, MCZI and Z-Score) that in order to calculate these indices, only precipitation data is used. To simulate RDI, Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) was used. For validation of estimating equations, different indices of goodness of fit were used (NSE, RMSE, MAE, R2, QIC and QICC). Results of this study indicated that the SPI, CZI, MCZI and DI indices had the most appropriateness for simulating RDI. When the SPI index (the best index for simulating RDI) was used to simulate the RDI, according to the results of T-Test, the observed and simulated data series hadn’t significantly difference (P value >0.05) in all stations. The average values of NSE, R2, RMSE, MAE, QIC and QICC obtained 0.976, 0.139, 0.088, 0.976, 21.24 and 17.82 sequential.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ballinger, G.A.: Using generalized estimating equations for longitudinal data analysis. Organ. Res. Methods. 7(2), 127–150 (2004)
Banimahd, S.A., Khalili, D.: Factors influencing Markov chains predictability characteristics, utilizing SPI, RDI, EDI and SPEI drought indices in different climatic zones. Water Resour. Manag. 27(11), 3911–3928 (2013)
Bennani, S., Nsarellah, N., Jlibene, M., Tadesse, W., Birouk, A., Ouabbou, H.: Efficiency of drought tolerance indices under different stress severities for bread wheat selection. Aust. J. Crop. Sci. 11(4), 395–405 (2017)
Cancelliere, A., Di Mauro, G., Bonaccorso, B., Rossi, G.: Drought forecasting using the standardized precipitation index. Water Resour. Manag. 21, 801–819 (2007)
Djerbouai, S., Souag-Gamane, D.: Drought forecasting using neural networks, wavelet neural networks, and stochastic models: case of the Algerois basin in North Algeria. Water Resour. Manag. 30, 2445–2464 (2016)
Gabriele, B., Tommaso, C., Nicola, R., Ilaria, G.: Assessment of drought and its uncertainty in a southern Italy area (Calabria region). Measurement. 113, 205–210 (2017)
Gardiner, J.C., Luo, Z., Roman, L.A.: Fixed effects, random effects and GEE: what are the differences? Stat. Med. 28(2), 221–239 (2009)
Ghisletta, P., Spini, D.: An introduction to generalized estimating equations and an application to assess selectivity effects in a longitudinal study on very old individuals. J. Educ. Behav. Stat. 29(4), 421–437 (2004)
Gibbs WJ, Maher JV Rainfall deciles as drought indicators. Bur Meteorol Bulletin No.48, Melbourne, Australia (1967)
Guttman, N.B.: Accepting the standardized precipitation index: a calculation algorithm. J Am Water Resour Assoc. 35(2), 311–322 (1999)
Hu, F.B., Goldberg, G., Hedeker, D., Flay, B.R., Pentz, M.A.: Comparison of population-averaged and subject-specific approaches for analyzing repeated binary outcomes. Am. J. Epidemiol. 147(7), 694–703 (1998)
Ismail, D., Ashok, K.M., Zekai, S.: Long-term spatio-temporal drought variability in Turkey. J. Hydrol. 552, 779–792 (2017)
Jain, V.K., Pandey, R.P., Jain, M., Byun, H.R.: Comparison of drought indices for appraisal of drought characteristics in the Ken River basin. Weather Clim Extrem. 8, 1–11 (2015)
Jamshidi H, Khalili D, Rezaeian Zadeh M, Zia Hosseinipour E Assessment and comparison of SPI and RDI meteorological drought indices in selected synoptic stations of Iran. World Environmental and Water Resources Congress, Bearing Knowledge for Sustainability, ASCE (2011)
Kendall, M.G., Stuart, A.: The Advanced Theory of Statistics. Vol.1, Distribution Theory, pp. 400–401. Charles Griffin Company, London (1977)
Khalili, D., Farnoud, T., Jamshidi, H., Kamgar-Haghighi, A.A., Zand-Parsa, S.: Comparability analyses of the SPI and RDI meteorological drought indices in different climatic zones. Water Resour. Manag. 25, 1737–1757 (2011)
Khan, M.I., Liu, D., Fu, Q., Saddique, Q., Faiz, M.A., Li, T., Qamar, M.U., Cui, S., Cheng, C.: projected changes of future extreme drought events under numerous drought indices in the eilongjiang province of China. Water Resour. Manag. 31, 3921–3937 (2017)
Kwarteng, F., Shwetha, G., Rahul, P.: Reconnaissance drought index as potential drought monitoring tool in a Deccan plateau, hot semi-arid climatic zone. International Journal of Agriculture Sciences. 9(1), 2183–2186 (2017)
Legates, D.R., McCabe Jr., G.J.: Evaluating the use of “goodness-of-fit” measures in hydrologic and hydroclimatic model validation. Water Resour. Manag. 35(1), 233–241 (1999)
Mashari Eshghabad, S., Omidvar, E., Solaimani, K.: Efficiency of some meteorological drought indices in different time scales (case study: Tajan Basin, Iran). Ecopersia. 2(1), 441–453 (2014)
McKee TB, Doesken NJ, Kleist JThe relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales. In: Proc. 8th Conf. on Applied Climatology, 17–22 January, American Meteorological Society, Mass, 179–184 (1993)
Montaseri, M., Amirataee, B., Nawaz, R.: A Monte Carlo simulation-based approach to evaluate the performance of three meteorological drought indices in northwest of Iran. Water Resour. Manag. 31, 1323–1342 (2017)
Morid, S., Smakhtin, V., Moghadasi, M.: Comparison of seven meteorological indices for drought monitoring in Iran. Int. J. Climatol. 26(7), 971–985 (2006)
Mpelasoka, F., Hennesy, K., Jones, R., Bates, B.: Comparison of suitable drought indices for climate change impacts assessment over Australia towards resource management. Int. J. Climatol. 28, 1283–1292 (2008)
Raziei, T.B., Saghafian Paulo, A.A., Pereira, L.S., Bordi, I.: Spatial patterns and temporal variability of drought in western Iran. Water Resour. Manag. 23, 439–455 (2009)
Smakhtin VU., Hughes DA Review, automated estimation and analyses of drought indices in South Asia, International water management institute, Working Paper 83, Drought Series, Paper 1 (2004)
Tabrizi, A.A., Khalili, D., Kamgar-Haghighi, A.A., Zand-Parsa, S.: Utilization of time-based meteorological droughts to investigate occurrence of stream flow droughts. Water Resour. Manag. 24, 4287–4306 (2010)
Tsakiris G Meteorological Drought Assessment. Paper prepared for the needs of the European Research Program MEDROPLAN (Mediterranean Drought Preparedness and Mitigation Planning), Zaragoza, Spain (2004)
Tsakiris, G., Vangelis, H.: Establishing a drought index incorporating evapotranspiration. Eur Water. (9/10), 3–11 (2005)
Tsakiris, G., Pangalou, D., Vangelis, H.: Regional drought assessment based on reconnaissance drought index (RDI). Water Resour. Manag. 21(5), 821–833 (2007)
Wu, H., Hayes, M.J., Welss, A., Hu, Q.: An evaluation the standardized precipitation index, the China-Z index and the statistical z-score. Int. J. Climatol. 21, 745–758 (2001)
Zarei, A.R.: Evaluation of drought condition in arid and semi- arid regions, using RDI index. Water Resour. Manag. 32, 1689–1711 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1898-9
Zarei, A.R., Mahmoudi, M.R.: Evaluation of changes in RDIst index affected by different potential evapotranspiration calculation methods. Water Resour. Manag. 31, 4981–4999 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1790-7
Zarei, A.R., Moghimi, M.M.: Environmental assessment of semi-humid and humid regions based on modelling and forecasting of changes in monthly temperature. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 16, 1457–1470 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-017-1600-z
Zarei, A.R., Moghimi, M.M., Bahrami, M., Mahmoudi, M.R.: Evaluation of changes trend in seasonal drought based on actual data (1980-2014) and predicted data (1980-2019) in south-west of Iran. Desert Management journal. 7(1), 71–85 (2016a)
Zarei, A.R., Moghimi, M.M., Mahmoudi, M.R.: Analysis of changes in spatial pattern of drought using RDI index in south of Iran. Water Resour. Manag. 30(11), 3723–3743 (2016b)
Zarei, A.R., Shabani, A., Mahmoudi, M.R.: Comparison of the climate indices based on the relationship between yield loss of rain-fed winter wheat and changes of climate indices using GEE model. Sci. Total Environ. 661, 711–722 (2019)
Zareiee, A.R.: Evaluation of changes in different climates of Iran, using De-Martonne index and Mann-Kendall trend test. Natural Hazards and Earth System Science. Discuss. 2, 2245–2261 (2014)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible Editor: Ashok Karumuri.
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Moghimi, M.M., Zarei, A.R. Evaluating Performance and Applicability of Several Drought Indices in Arid Regions. Asia-Pacific J Atmos Sci 57, 645–661 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13143-019-00122-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13143-019-00122-z