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A New Physically Based Self-Calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index and its Performance Evaluation

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Abstract

In this study, a new Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) variant is developed by coupling Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model with the self-calibrating PDSI (SCP). Evaluation of the new drought index (denoted as SCPV) is conducted during 1961–2012 over whole Yellow River basin (YRB) through a series of comparisons with SCP, including intermediate variables (moisture departure d, climatic characteristic K and moisture anomaly index Z), long-term series of PDSI values, and their each relationship with other meteorological and agricultural indices. Results show that SCPV generally inherits the advantages of SCP, and improves the deficiencies of SCP in the hydrologic accounting section to some extent. Comparing to SCP, SCPV ameliorates the negative departure of accumulated moisture anomaly index Z of SCP in the semiarid zone. The introduction of physically based VIC model in SCPV reinforces its connection with hydrological variables and hence shows better correlation with other meteorological and agricultural drought indices. Spatial drought trends reflected by SCPV are more reasonable, especially for the source region and northern parts of the YRB. With more preferable behavior in moisture departure simulations, SCPV shows its strength and is promising to be a competent reference in future drought researches.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Special Basic Research Fund for Methodology in Hydrology (Grant no. 2011IM011000) from the Ministry of Sciences and Technology, China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 41201031), the National Key Technology R&D Program by Ministry of Sciences and Technology, China (Grant No. 2013BAC10B02), the 111 Project (Grant no. B08048) from the Ministry of Education and State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, China, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant No. 2014B35814, Grant No. 2014B35914).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, No.1 Xikang Road, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Yi Liu, Liliang Ren, Fei Yuan & Mingwei Ma

  2. College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Yi Liu, Xiaoli Yang, Liliang Ren, Fei Yuan, Shanhu Jiang & Mingwei Ma

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  1. Yi Liu
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  2. Xiaoli Yang
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  3. Liliang Ren
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  4. Fei Yuan
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  5. Shanhu Jiang
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  6. Mingwei Ma
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Correspondence to Liliang Ren.

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Liu, Y., Yang, X., Ren, L. et al. A New Physically Based Self-Calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index and its Performance Evaluation. Water Resour Manage 29, 4833–4847 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-015-1093-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-015-1093-9

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