Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Quantile regression and clustering analysis of standardized precipitation index in the Tarim River Basin, Xinjiang, China

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Theoretical and Applied Climatology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Because drought is a very common and widespread natural disaster, it has attracted a great deal of academic interest. Based on 12-month time scale standardized precipitation indices (SPI12) calculated from precipitation data recorded between 1960 and 2015 at 22 weather stations in the Tarim River Basin (TRB), this study aims to identify the trends of SPI and drought duration, severity, and frequency at various quantiles and to perform cluster analysis of drought events in the TRB. The results indicated that (1) both precipitation and temperature at most stations in the TRB exhibited significant positive trends during 1960–2015; (2) multiple scales of SPIs changed significantly around 1986; (3) based on quantile regression analysis of temporal drought changes, the positive SPI slopes indicated less severe and less frequent droughts at lower quantiles, but clear variation was detected in the drought frequency; and (4) significantly different trends were found in drought frequency probably between severe droughts and drought frequency.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Chen YN, Xu ZX (2005) Plausible impact of global climate change on water resources in the Tarim River Basin. Sci China 48(1):65–73 (in Chinese)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen YN, Takeuchi K, Xu CC, Chen YP, Xu ZX (2006) Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, China. Hydrol Process 20(10):2207–2216

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen YN, Li WH, Xu CC, Hao XM (2007) Effects of climate change on water resources in Tarim River Basin, Northwest China. J Environ Sci China 19(4):488–493

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen YN, Xu CC, Hao XM, Li WH, Chen YP, Zhu CG, Ye ZX (2009) Fifty-year climate change and its effect on annual runoff in the Tarim River Basin, China. Quat Int 208:53–61

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen YN, Ye ZX, Shen YJ (2011) Desiccation of the Tarim River, Xinjiang, China, and mitigation strategy. Quat Int 244:264–271

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen YN, Xu CC, Chen YP, Liu Y, Li WH (2013) Progress, challenges and prospects of eco-hydrological studies in the Tarim River Basin of Xinjiang, China. Environ Manag 51(1):192–196

    Google Scholar 

  • Dracup JA, Lee KS, Paulson EG (1980) On the definition of droughts. Water Resour Res 16(2):297–303

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duan K, Mei Y (2014) Comparison of meteorological, hydrological and agricultural drought responses to climate change and uncertainty assessment. Water Resour Manag 28(14):5039–5054

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duethmann D, Bolch T, Farinotti D, Kriegel, Vorogushyn Y (2015) Attribution of streamflow trends in snow and glacier melt-dominated catchments of the Tarim River, Central Asia. Water Resour Res 51(6):4727–4750

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Farahmand A, AghaKouchak A (2015) A generalized framework for deriving nonparametric standardized drought indicators. Adv Water Resour 17(6):140–145

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ganguli P, Reddy MJ (2014) Evaluation of trends and multivariate frequency analysis of droughts in three meteorological subdivisions of western India. Int J Climatol 34(3):911–928

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hao XM, Chen YN, Xu CC, Li WH (2008) Impacts of climate change and human activity on the surface runoff in the Tarim River basin over the last fifty years. Water Resour Manag 22:1159–1171

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kao SC, Rao SG (2010) A copula-based joint deficit index for droughts. J Hydrol 380(1–2):121–134

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koenker R, Basset G (1987) Regression quantiles. Econometrica 46(1):33–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kousari MR, Dastorani MT, Niazi Y, Soheili E, Hayatzadeh M (2014) Trend detection of drought in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran based on implementation of reconnaissance drought index and application of non-parametrical statistical method. Water Resour Manag 28(7):1857–1872

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li ZQ, Li KM, Wang L (2010) Study on recent glacier changes and their impact on water resources in Xinjiang, north western China. Quat Sci 30:96–106

    Google Scholar 

  • Li S, Xiong LH, Dong LH, Zhang J (2013) Effects of the three gorges reservoir on the hydrological droughts at the downstream Yichang station during 2003-2011. Hydrol Process 27(26):3981–3993

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li XH, Feng G, Zhao CY, Shi FZ (2016a) Characteristics of soil infiltration in the Tarim River floodplain. Environ Earth Sci 75(9):1–7

    Google Scholar 

  • Li ZH, Hao ZC, Shi XG, Déry SJ, Li JY, Chen SC, Li YK (2016b) An agricultural drought index to incorporate the irrigation process and reservoir operations: a case study in the Tarim River Basin. Glob Planet Chang 143:10–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lyu JQ, Shen B, Li HE (2015) Dynamics of major hydro-climatic variables in the headwater catchment of the Tarim River Basin, Xinjiang, China. Quat Int S380-381:143–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKee TB, Doesken NJ, Kleist J (1993) The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales. Preprints Eighth Conference on Applied Climatology. American Meteorology Society, Anaheim, pp 179–184

    Google Scholar 

  • Mishra AK, Singh VP (2010) A review of drought concepts. J Hydrol 391(1–2):202–216

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palmer WC (1965) Meteorological drought. US Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau, Research Paper 45:58

  • Palmer WC (1968) Keeping track of crop moisture conditions, nationwide: the new crop moisture index. Weatherwise 21:156–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Russo S, Dosio A, Sterl A, Barbosa P, Vogt J (2013) Projection of occurrence of extreme dry-wet years and seasons in Europe with stationary and non-stationary standardized precipitation indices. J Geophys Res 118(14):7628–7639

    Google Scholar 

  • Shafer BA, Dezman LE (1982) Development of a surface water supply index to assess the severity of drought conditions in snowpack runoff areas. In: Preprints, Western Snow Conf., Colorado State University, Reno, p 164–175

  • Shiau JT, Lin JW (2016) Clustering quantile regression based drought trends in Taiwan. Water Resour Manag 30(3):1–17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shukla S, Wood AW (2008) Use of a standardized runoff index for characterizing hydrologic drought. Geophys Res Lett 35(2):226–236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sol’áková T, De MC, Vezzoli R (2014) A comparison between parametric and non-parametric approaches for the calculation of two drought indices: SPI and SSI. J Hydrol Eng 19(9):159–159

    Google Scholar 

  • Stagge JH, Tallaksen LM, Gudmundsson L, Loon AFV, Stahl K (2015) Candidate distributions for climatological drought indices (SPI and SPEI). Int J Climatol 35:4027–4040

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sun P, Zhang Q, Lu XX, Bai Y (2012) Changing properties of low flow of the Tarim River basin: possible causes and implications. Quat Int 282(60):78–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tabari H, Nikbakht J, Talaee PH (2013) Hydrological drought assessment in Northwestern Iran based on streamflow drought index. Water Resour Manag 27(1):137–151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vergni L, Todisco F, Mannocchi F (2016) Evaluating the uncertainty and reliability of standardized indices. Hydrol Res. https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2016.076

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vicente-Serrano SM, Beguería S, Lópezmoreno JI (2010) A multiscalar drought index sensitive to global warming: the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index. J Clim 23(7):1696–1718

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vicente-Serrano SM, López-Moreno J, Beguería S, Lorenzo-Lacruz J, Azorin-Molina C, Morán-Tejeda E (2012) Accurate computation of a streamflow drought index. J Hydrol Eng 17(2):318–332

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang HJ, Chen YN, Deng HJ, Pan YP (2015) Detecting changes in extreme streamflow in the Tarim River, Northwest China. Quat Int S380-381:149–158

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wen L, Rogers K (2011) The impacts of river regulation and water diversion on the hydrological drought characteristics in the Lower Murrumbidgee River, Australia. J Hydrol 405(4–5):382–391

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilhite DA (2000) Drought as a natural hazard: concepts and definitions. Drought A Global Assessment 1: 3–18

  • Wilhite DA, Svoboda MD, Hayes MJ (2007) Understanding the complex impacts of drought: a key to enhancing drought mitigation and preparedness. Water Resour Manag 21(5):763–774

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu H, Svoboda MD, Hayes MJ, Wilhite A, Wen F (2007) Appropriate application of the standardized precipitation index in arid locations and dry seasons. Int J Climatol 27(1):65–79

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yoo JY, Kwon HH, Kim TW, Ahn JH (2012) Drought frequency analysis using cluster analysis and bivariate probability distribution. J Hydrol 420-421:102–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Q, Sun P, Li JF, Xiao MZ, Singh VP (2015) Assessment of drought vulnerability of the Tarim River basin, Xinjiang, China. Theor Appl Climatol 121(1–2):337–347

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, for providing the meteorological data for this study.

Funding

The research is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program: 2012CB956204).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Water Cycle & Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Peng Yang, Jun Xia, Yongyong Zhang, Jian Han & Xia Wu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Peng Yang, Jian Han & Xia Wu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Water Resources & Hydropower Engineering Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430000, China

    Jun Xia

Authors
  1. Peng Yang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jun Xia
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yongyong Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jian Han
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Xia Wu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun Xia.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yang, P., Xia, J., Zhang, Y. et al. Quantile regression and clustering analysis of standardized precipitation index in the Tarim River Basin, Xinjiang, China. Theor Appl Climatol 134, 901–912 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2313-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2313-4

Search

Navigation