Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Assessment of Trend in Global Drought Propensity in the Twenty-First Century Using Drought Management Index

  • Published:
Water Resources Management Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study attempts to perform a global analysis of the trend in drought propensity in the twenty-first century using bias corrected soil moisture simulations from two General Circulation Model (GCMs) outputs based on the Representative Concentration Pathway-8.5 (RCP8.5) scenario. Drought propensity is characterized in terms of the probabilistic index – Drought Management Index (DMI), which is suitable for the assessment of slowly varying changes in soil moisture drought on a multi-year time scale. A global gridded analysis is performed to assess the future trend in drought propensity at each location on the globe over the twenty-first century. Regional analysis is also carried out to investigate the trends, if any, at the continental scale. A significant increasing trend in drought propensity is observed in large parts of Africa, South America and Asia, whereas a significant decreasing trend is observed in the northern parts of Europe and North America. This study helps to assess the spatio-temporal propagation of global drought propensity in future and aids in identifying the regions that would be relatively more/less prone to droughts towards the end of the century.

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

Access this article

Log in via an institution

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

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • AGU (2004) Framing Committee of the Global Water System Project. Humans transforming the global water system Eos AGU Trans 85:513–514

    Google Scholar 

  • Bates BC, Kundzewicz ZW, Wu S, Palutikof JP (2008) Climate change and water. Technical Paper of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Secretariat, Geneva, pp. 210

  • Burke EJ (2011) Understanding the sensitivity of different drought metrics to the drivers of drought under increased atmospheric CO2. J Hydrometeorol 12(6):1378–1394

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke EJ, Brown SJ (2008) Evaluating uncertainties in the projection of future drought. J Hydrometeorol 9(2):292–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chanda K, Maity R, Sharma A, Mehrotra R (2014) Spatiotemporal variation of long-term drought propensity through reliability-resilience-vulnerability based drought management index, water Resour. Res 50:7662–7676. doi:10.1002/2014WR015703

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiew FHS, Teng J, Kirono D, Frost AJ, Bathols JM, Vaze J, Viney NR, Young WJ, Hennessy KJ and Cai WJ (2008) Climate data for hydrologic scenario modelling across the Murray-Darling Basin. A report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project. CSIRO, Australia. 35pp. Available at https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=procite:88ee61de-92b9-4acc-b9b1-bf6de5d45ca9&dsid=DS1. Accessed 28 Oct 2016

  • Cook BI, Miller RL, Seager R (2009) Amplification of the north American “dust bowl” drought through human-induced land degradation. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106:4997–5001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dai A (2011) Drought under global warming: a review. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Chang. doi:10.1002/wcc.81

    Google Scholar 

  • Fan Y, van den Dool H (2004) Climate prediction center global monthly soil moisture data set at 0.5 degree resolution for 1948 to present. J Geophys Res 109:D10102. doi:10.1029/2003JD004345

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Findell KL, Delworth TL (2010) Impact of common sea surface temperature anomalies on global drought and pluvial frequency. J Clim 23:485–503

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goswami BN, Venugopal V, Sengupta D, Madhusoodanan MS, Xavier PK (2006) Increasing trend of extreme rain events over India in a warming environment. Science 314:1442–1445

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrold TI, Jones RN (2003) Generation of rainfall scenarios using daily patterns of change from GCMs, Water Resources Systems—Water Availability and Global Change S. Franks et al., Eds., IAHS Publication 280, IAHS Press, 165–174 pp

  • Hu Q, Feng S (2001) A southward migration of centennial-scale variations of drought/flood in eastern China and the western United States. J Clim 2001(14):1323–1328

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson F, Sharma A (2012) A nesting model for bias correction of variability at multiple time scales in general circulation model precipitation simulations. Water Resour Res 48:W01504. doi:10.1029/2011WR010464

    Google Scholar 

  • Loukas A, Vasiliades L, Tzabiras J (2008) Climate change effects on drought severity. Adv Geosci 17(17):23–29

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maity R, Sharma A, Nagesh Kumar D, Chanda K (2013) Characterizing drought using the reliability-resilience-vulnerability concept. J Hydrol Eng 18(7):859–869

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Manabe S, Wetherald RT, Milly P, Delworth TL, Stouffer RJ (2004) Centuryscale change in water availability: CO2-quadrupling experiment. Clim Chang 64(1–2):59–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maurer EP, Hidalgo HG (2008) Utility of daily vs. monthly largescale climate data: An intercomparison of two statistical downscaling methods. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 12(2):551–563

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mehrotra R, Sharma A (2015) Correcting for systematic biases in multiple raw GCM variables across a range of timescales. J Hydrol. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.11.037

    Google Scholar 

  • Meybeck M (2003) Global analysis of river systems: from earth system controls to Anthropocene syndromes. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 358(1440):1935–1955. doi:10.1098/rstb.2003.1379

  • Qin Y, Yang D, Lei H, Xu K, Xu X (2015) Comparative analysis of drought based on precipitation and soil moisture indices in Haihe basin of North China during the period of 1960-2010. J Hydrol 526:55–67. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.09.068

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds CA, Jackson TJ, Rawls WJ (2000) Estimating soil water-holding capacities by linking the food and agriculture organization soil map of the world with global pedon databases and continuous pedotransfer functions. Water Resour Res 36(12):3653–3662. doi:10.1029/2000WR900130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Santer BD, Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie (1990) Developing climate scenarios from equilibrium GCM results. Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie. 29pp. https://books.google.de/books/about/Developing_Climate_Scenarios_from_Equili.html?id=2yILGwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

  • Schubert SD, Gutzler D, Wang HL, Dai A, Delworth T, Deser C, Findell K, Fu R, Higgins W, Hoerling M, Kirtman B, Koster R, Kumar A, Legler D, Lettenmaier D, Lyon B, Magana V, Mo K, Nigam S, Pegion P, Phillips A, Pulwarty R, Rind D, Ruiz-Barradas A, Schemm J, Seager R, Stewart R, Suarez M, Syktus J, Ting M, Wang C, Weaver S, Zeng N (2009) A US CLIVAR project to assess and compare the responses of global climate models to drought-related SST forcing patterns: overview and results. J Clim 22:5251–5272

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shen C, Wang WC, Hao Z, Gong W (2007) Exceptional drought events over eastern China duringthe last five centuries. Clim Chang 85:453–471

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor IH, Burke E, McColl L, Falloon P, Harris GR, McNeall D (2012) Contributions to uncertainty in projections of future drought under climate change scenarios. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci Discuss 9(11):12613–12653

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van den Dool H, Huang J, Fan Y (2003) Performance and analysis of the constructed analogue method applied to US soil moisture applied over 1981-2001. J Geophys Res 108:1–16

    Google Scholar 

  • Vaze J, Teng J, Post D, Chiew FHS, Perraud JM, Kirono D (2008) Future climate and runoff projections (~2030) for new South Wales and Australian Capital Territory, NSW Department of Water and Energy Rep., 42 pp

  • Vidal JP, Martin E, Kitova N, Najac J, Soubeyroux JM (2012) Evolution of spatio–temporal drought characteristics: validation, projections and effect of adaptation scenarios. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 16(8):2935–2955

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vörösmarty CJ, McIntyre PB, Gessner MO, Dudgeon D, Prusevich A, Green P, Glidden S, Bunn SE, Sullivan CA, Reidy Liermann C, Davies PM (2010) Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity. Nature 467:555–561. doi:10.1038/nature09440

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang G (2005) Agricultural drought in a future climate: results from 15 global climate models participating in the IPCC 4th assessment. Clim Dyn 25(7–8):739–753

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WMO (2013) A summary of current climate change findings and figures, World Meteorological Organization

  • Wood AW, Maurer EP, Kumar A, Lettenmaier DP (2002) Long-range experimental hydrologic forecasting for the eastern United States. J Geophys Res 107:4429. doi:10.1029/2001JD000659

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) (Ref No. MoES/PAMC/H&C/30/2013-PC-II) through sponsored projects.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Rajib Maity

    Present address: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Campus Alpin, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India

    Kironmala Chanda

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India

    Rajib Maity

Authors
  1. Kironmala Chanda
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rajib Maity
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rajib Maity.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Chanda, K., Maity, R. Assessment of Trend in Global Drought Propensity in the Twenty-First Century Using Drought Management Index. Water Resour Manage 31, 1209–1225 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1571-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1571-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation