Abstract
Droughts have turned out to be a standout amongst the most discussed natural hazards in the recent past due to its adverse impacts on humankind. The effects of drought differ from region to region and time to time. Unlike, the other cataclysmic events, a drought is a mind-boggling phenomenon due to its longer propagation time and the effects being long-lasting. This study focuses on analysing the spatial and temporal variations of the drought in the Kirindi Oya basin which lies in the intermediate, dry and arid climatological zones. Daily remotely sensed precipitation data for a span of 37 years from 1979–2017 has been used with a spatial resolution of 0.1°. Several drought indices, namely Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Deciles, Percent of Normal, Rainfall Anomaly Index and Z index have been considered. A comparative analysis of the applicability of each drought index along with the validation by ground reality is presented.
The results of the study imply the importance of conducting a study at the sub-basin scale for the river basins lying in several vastly different climatological regions. The Kirindi Oya basin that is considered, lies in three different climatological regions, where the upper Kirindi Oya subbasin is in the intermediate zone, the lower Kirindi Oya in the arid zone and the rest in the dry zone. The results indicate that the effects of drought can vary even within a river basin and a sub basin scale analysis of drought gives a comparatively accurate interpretation of the variation of drought within the basin. Furthermore, the recent findings confirms that the drought prediction at a sub basin scale is more effective for river basins which lie in several climate zones.
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Acknowledgement
The authors would like to acknowledge that the research project was financially supported by the Senate Research Committee Grant (SRC/LT/2018/25), University of Moratuwa.
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Hendawitharana, S.U., Priyasad, M.K.D.D., Rajapakse, R.L.H.L. (2020). Comparative Study of Spatial and Temporal Variation of Drought Using Remotely Sensed Data - A Case Study for Kirindi Oya Basin. In: Dissanayake, R., Mendis, P. (eds) ICSBE 2018. ICSBE 2018. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering , vol 44. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9749-3_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9749-3_11
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