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Increasing drought has been observed by SPEI_pm in Southwest China during 1962–2012

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Abstract

Drought is regarded as an environmental disaster that has significantly impacted on economic and social development in recent decades, particularly in Southwest China (SWC). Here, we presented an analysis of spatiotemporal variations of meteorological drought in SWC. We computed the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index using the Penman–Monteith equation (SPEI_pm) and explored spatiotemporal variational evolution of drought in SWC during 1962–2012 utilizing the Mann–Kendall test, continuous wavelet transform (CWT), and rotated empirical orthogonal function (REOF). We also analyzed the relationship between the rotated principal component time series (RPCs) and the 74 circulation indices. The results showed that (1) SWC displayed a dry trend at annual and seasonal scale with a 2–4-year significant period. The SWC can be divided into six sub-climate regions with different aridity and wetness features. (2) Among the six regions, the Eastern Yunnan Plateau showed an obvious dry trend while Hanzhong Basin and the Eastern Mountain Areas showed a wet trend that was not significant. There were 2–8-year periods of oscillation in general within the variation of the six regions. (3) The indices of the strength of the polar vortex in Asia (APVA) may affect the drought evolution of the whole study area. The change of drought in Eastern Yunnan Plateau and Sichuan Basin may be associated with Tibetan Plateau High.

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Acknowledgements

The research is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51579105, 91547202, 51479216), Special Program for Applied Research on Super Computation of the NSFC-Guangdong Joint Fund (the second phase), the Water Resource Science and Technology Innovation Program of Guangdong Province (2016-25, 2015-17). Our cordial gratitude also should be owed to the Editor-in-Chief Prof. Hartmut Graßl and the three anonymous reviewers for their professional and pertinent suggestions and comments, which are greatly helpful for further improvements of the quality of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510641, China

    Zhaoli Wang, Jun Li, Chengguang Lai, Zeqin Huang, Ruida Zhong & Zhaoyang Zeng

  2. State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building Science, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510641, China

    Zhaoli Wang & Jun Li

  3. Center for Water Resources and Environment Research, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Chengguang Lai & Xiaohong Chen

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  1. Zhaoli Wang
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  3. Chengguang Lai
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Correspondence to Chengguang Lai.

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Wang, Z., Li, J., Lai, C. et al. Increasing drought has been observed by SPEI_pm in Southwest China during 1962–2012. Theor Appl Climatol 133, 23–38 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2152-3

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