Analyzing the translation from Metrological to Hydrological Drought for Wainganga River of Central India

Abstract

Drought is one of the most devastating climate related hazards, occurs when water availability is significantly below normal level during a significant period of time. The present study deals with precipitation anomalies and its translation to runoff anomalies. There are number of processes which influences the development and recovery of hydrological droughts. This study contrasts the behavior of standardized runoff index (SRI) with well-known standardized precipitation index (SPI) during drought events for Wainganga River of central India. 50 years (1965 – 2015) of discharge and precipitation data was used for this study. Using threshold level method, drought characteristics such as precipitation and runoff deficits were derived. The study considered on both catchment-controlled and climate-controlled drought propagation characteristics. However, the SRI and SPI are similar i.e. both are built on long accumulation periods. The SRI includes hydrologic processes that determine seasonal lags due to the effect of climate on streamflow. Therefore, for monthly and seasonal time scales, the SRI is beneficial to depicting hydrologic aspects of drought. Variability of these characteristics over the course of time was also analyzed. Results show a dominance of climate controlled characteristics on drought propagation.