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Using multifractal and wavelet analyses to determine drought characteristics: a case study of Jilin province, China

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Abstract

Drought is a recurrent disaster that occurs in virtually all climatic zones of the world. However, drought characteristics vary substantially among different climatic regions. In this study, multifractal and wavelet analyses are used to characterize drought based on monthly precipitation. The rainfall data of 28 precipitation stations from 1958 to 2011 in Jilin province were collected to calculate the standardized precipitation index (SPI), and the negative monthly SPI time-series is used in a multiscaling approach to determine drought characteristics in Jilin province. Simple scaling and multiscaling analyses show significant variations in monthly droughts in the region. Morlet wavelet analysis also shows that significant cycles and multiple time-scales of drought exist in all stations. Cross wavelet analysis shows that drought occurrence in the region is mainly influenced by different climatic factor scales. However, different factors have different degrees of influence at different regions. The enduring influence of medium and long-term climatic patterns (such as El Niño events) may lead to the simple scaling behavior of drought for some regions.

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Acknowledgments

This study was founded by “Nature Science Foundation of China (No. 41072171)”. The co-authors would like to express our appreciation to the network of National Centers for Environmental Prediction and China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System for sharing the relevant data. The authors are grateful for the constructive comments made by chief editor Hartmut Graßl and the anonymous reviewer which helped the improvement of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Groundwater Resources and Environment, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China

    Qian Zhang, Wenxi Lu & Xiujuan Liang

  2. Tianjin Center, China Geological Survey, Tianjin, 300170, China

    Sheming Chen

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  1. Qian Zhang
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  2. Wenxi Lu
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  3. Sheming Chen
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  4. Xiujuan Liang
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Correspondence to Sheming Chen.

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Zhang, Q., Lu, W., Chen, S. et al. Using multifractal and wavelet analyses to determine drought characteristics: a case study of Jilin province, China. Theor Appl Climatol 125, 829–840 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1781-2

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