Assessment of meteorological and hydrological drought (Case study: Zohreh river)

Razmkhah, Homa; Ghahremani, Emad; Fararouie, Alireza; Rostami Ravari, Amin

doi:10.22034/iwm.2022.563458.1047

Assessment of meteorological and hydrological drought (Case study: Zohreh river)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Homa Razmkhah ¹

Emad Ghahremani ²

Alireza Fararouie ¹

Amin Rostami Ravari ¹

¹ Assistant Professor, Department of Water Engineering, Marvdasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht, Iran

² M.Sc. Graduated, Department of Water Engineering, Marvdasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht, Iran

10.22034/iwm.2022.563458.1047

Abstract

Extended Abstract
Introduction
Drought is a weather phenomenon that causes much damage every year. Kohgilouyeh and Boyer Ahmad province is located in the Southwest of Iran. Since it provides a substantial portion of the water of Karoun, Maroon, and Zohreh, which are three important rivers in this province, and evaluation and prediction of drought in this province seems necessary. This study aims to evaluate the compliance of meteorological and hydrological drought of the Zohreh river basin is in this province.
Materials and methods:
Using SPI (Standardized Precipitation Index) and SWI index (Standardized Water level Indicator), the relationship between meteorological and hydrological drought was evaluated, and the comparison between the occurrence of meteorological and hydrological droughts was performed. The SPI was calculated for 10 meteorological stations with 30 years of data, and SWI for 11 piezometric wells for the whole statistical data available. The trend of the river streamflow and piezometric wells' groundwater levels was assessed using the Mann-Kendall test for 5 hydrometric stations and the piezometric wells. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to assess the relationship between rainfall, discharge, and groundwater level in different time lags.
Results and Discussion:
Results showed that in negative SPI durations, the groundwater level decreased with some delay. The delay increased when the drought scale increased. In recent years, the duration and intensity of drought have increased. Maximum volume of 3, 6, 9, and 12 months precipitation drought of Nazmakan station occurred in 1378-78, the maximum intensity of 3, 6, and 9 months in 1383, and 12 months occurred in 1388. When the drought scale increased, drought duration and intensity increased, and the drought frequency decreased. Results for the other stations were nearly similar. SWI of Basht well showed that 6, 12, 24, and 48 months droughts continued nearly 48 months, from the end of 2006 to the middle of 2010. The intensity of 48 months drought was maximum and 12, 24, and 6 months were in the next level of intensity. This trend shows the long time accumulating effect of meteorological trends on the decreasing level of groundwater, although pumping withdrawal of groundwater is also effective. The trend for other wells was nearly similar. The Mann-Kendall test did not confirm the trend of stations discharge, but the decreasing level of groundwater in all wells was statistically confirmed. The Pearson’s coefficient of precipitation-discharge showed the maximum correlation with the same month data. It could be from the surface water's direct relation with groundwater, and the decreasing amount of snow precipitation in recent years, which lead to a delay between them. The maximum Pearson’s correlation of the groundwater level -precipitation, and groundwater level -discharge was observed with two months delay. It could verify the groundwater recharge with surface water, and the time needed for infiltration and movement of water in the aquifer.
Conclusions:
The results could be used for predicting the effects of meteorological drought on hydrological drought. The properties of meteorological and hydrological droughts could be used to manage drought and water resources, supply water for agriculture, industry, and livestock, and supply drinking water for humans in the province.

Keywords

Meteorological drought

hydrological drought

SPI index

SWI index

20.1001.1.27834581.1401.2.3.4.4

Subjects

Integrated Watershed Management

Abramowitz, M., & Stegun, A. (Eds.). (1965). Handbook of Mathematical Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables. Dover Publications, Inc., New York, USA.

Alizadeh, A. (2007). The Principles Applied hydrology principles. Ferdowsi university of Mashhad (In Persian).

Alley, W.M. (1985). Palmer drought severity index as a measure of hydrologic drought, Water Resouces Bulletin, 21(1), 105-114.

Bhuiyan, C. (2004). Various drought indices for monitoring drought condition in Aravalli terrain of India. In: Proceedings of the ISPRS Conference. Int. Soc. Photogram Remote Sens. Istanbul.

Bhuiyan, C., Singh, R.P., & Kogan, F.N. (2006). Monitoring Drought Dynamics in the Aravalli Region (India) Using Different Indices Based on Ground and Remote Sensing Data, Int. J. Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 8, 289–302.

Byun, H.-R. & Wilhite, D.A. (1999). Objective quantification of drought severity and duration, J. Climate, 12(9), 2747-2756.

Dracup, J.A., Lee K.S., & Paulson E.G. (1980). On the definition of droughts, Water Resources Research, 16(2), 297-302.

Ensafi Moghadam, T. (2005). An Investigation and assessment of climatological indices and determination of suitable index for climatological droughts in the Salt Lake Basin of Iran. Iranian J of rangeland and desert research, 14(2), 271-288 (In Persian).

Faraj zadeh, M. (1997). Drought study methods. Forest and Range, 32, 22-28 (In Persian).

Ghahremani, E. (2015). Analysis of meteorological and hydrological drought in zohreh river basin. M.S. Thesis, Water Science and Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht branch, Marvdasht, Iran (In Persian).

Glantz, M.H., & Wilhite, D.A. (1985) Understanding the drought phenomenon: The role of definitions, Water International, 10(3), 111-120.

Guttman, N. B. (1991). Sensitivity analysis of the Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index, Water Resources Bulletin, 27(5), 797-807.

Hayes, M.J., Svoboda, M.D., Wilhite, D.A., & Vanyarkho, O.V. (1999). Monitoring the 1996 drought using the Standardized Precipitation Index, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 80, 429–438.

Hisdal, H., & Tallaksen, L.M. (2003). Estimation of regional meteorological and hydrological drought characteristics: a case study for Denmark, J. of Hydrology, 281:230–2.

Janbozorgi, M., Hanifepour, M. & Khosravi, H. (2021). Temporal changes in meteorological-hydrological drought (case study: Guilan province). Water and Soil Management and Modeling, 1(2), 1-14. (In Persian).

Karami, F. (2011). Evaluation of meteorological drought effects in the reduction of ground water table (Case study: Tabriz plain). Geography and Planning, 16(37), 111-131 (In Persian).

Kariminazar, M., Moghadam Nia, A.R. & Mosaedi, A. (2010). Investigation of climate factors affecting occurrence of drought (case study: Zabol region). J. of Water and Soil Conservation, 17(1), 145-158 (In Persian).

Kalayci, S. & Kahya, E. (2004). Trend analysis of stream flow in Turkey, J. of Hydrology, 289, 128-144.

Khan, S., Gabriel, H.F. & Rana, T. (2008). Standard precipitation index to track drought and assess impact of rainfall on water tables in irrigation areas, Irrigation and Drainage Systems J., 22, 159-177.

Khani Temeliyeh, Z.A., Rezaei, H. & Mirabbasi Najafabadi, R. (2020). Multivariate Analysis of Meteorological Droughts in Iran Using Joint Deficit Index (JDI). Scientific J. of Agricultural Meteorology, 8(1), 26-39 (In Persian).

Khazaei, M.R. (2003). Hydrological drought frequency distribution analysis, case study: Ghareh soo river basin. Geography and Development, 1(2), 45-56. (In Persian).

Khorooshi, S., Mostafazadeh, R., Esmali Ouri, A. & Raoof, M. (2017). Spatiotemporal assessment of the hydrologic river health index variations in Ardabil Province Watersheds. Ecohydrology, 4(2), 379-393 (In Persian).

Maleki Nejad, H. & Soleimani-Motlaq, M. (2011). Assessing the severity of climatic and hydrologic droughts in Chaghalvandi basin, Iranian Water Research J., 9, 61-72. (In Persian).

Mckee, T.B., Doesken, N.J. & Kleist, J. (1993). The Relationship of drought Frequency and Duration to Time Scales, 8th Conference on Applied Climatology, 179-184.

Mehry, S., Haji, Kh., Alizadeh, V. & Mostafazadeh, R. (2017). Assessment of spatial variations of meteorological drought periods severity in Kurdistan Province at different time scales. Geographical Data, 26(102), 151-162 (In Persian).

Mendicino, G., Senatore, A. & Versace, P. (2008). A Groundwater Resource Index (GRI) for drought monitoring and forecasting in Mediterranean climate, J. of Hydrology, 357(3-4), 282-302.

Mesbahzadeh, T. & Soleimani Sardoo, F. (2018). Temporal Trend Study of Hydrological and Meteorological Drought in Karkheh Watershed. Iran-Watershed Management Science and Engineering, 12(40), 105-114 (In Persian).

Moghadassi, M., Paymozd, Sh. & Morid, S. (2005). Monitoring the drought during 1998 to 2000 in Tehran province, using EDI, SPI, DI indices and geographical information system. Modarres Human Sciences, 9(1), 197-215 (In Persian).

Morid S., Smakhtin, V. & Moghaddasi, M. (2006). Comparison of seven meteorological indices for drought monitoring in Iran, International J. of Climatology, 26, 971–985.

Mostafazadeh, R., Shahabi, M. & Zabihi, M. (2015). Analysis of meteorological drought using Triple Diagram Model in the Kurdistan Province, Iran. Geographical Planning of Space, 5(17), 129-140. (In Persian).

Mozafari, G.A. (2006). Unconformality in meteorological and hydrological drought in two neighboring basin at north mountain slope of Shirkoh Yazd. Modarres Human Sciences, 10(1), 173-190. (In Persian).

Pal, I. & Al-Tabbaa, A. (2011). Assessing seasonal precipitation trends in India using parametric and non-parametric statistical techniques, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 103, 1–11.

Palmer, W.C. (1965). Meteorological Drought, US Department of Commerce Weather Bureau, Washington, DC., Research Paper No. 45.

Partal, T. & Kucuk, M. (2006). Long-term trend analysis using discrete wavelet components of annual precipitations measurements in Marmara region (Turkey), Physics and Chemistry of Earth, Part A/B/C, 31(18), 1189-1200.

Partal, T., & Kahya, E. (2006). Trend analysis in Turkey precipitation data, Hydrological Processes, 20, 2011–2026.

Patel, N.R., Chopra P. & Dadhwal V.K. (2007). Analysing spatial patterns of meteorological drought using standardized precipitation index, Meteorological Application, 14(4), 329–336.

Razmkhah, H. (2016). Preparing stream flow drought severity-duration-frequency curves using threshold level method, Arabian J. of Geosciences, 9:513.

Razmkhah, H. (2017). Comparing threshold level methods in development of stream flow drought severity-duration-frequency curves, Water Resources Management, 31, 4045–406.

Razmkhah, H., Akhond Ali, A.M., Roustaie, R. & Abdollahi, K. (2009). Assessing spatiotemporal pattern of meteorological drought, case study: Fars Province, The Second National Seminar on Drought Effects/Management, Esfahan (In Persian).

Razmkhah, H. & Safi, Z. (2012). Analysis if Bakhtegan basin Hydrological drought. 4th Iran Water Resources Management Conference, Tehran, Iran (In Persian).

Rostami, E. (2013). Monitoring and prediction of hydrological drought in Kohgilouyeh and BoyerAhmad province, using meteorological drought indexes and Artificial Neural Networks. M.S. Thesis, Water science and engineering, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht branch, Marvdasht, Iran (In Persian).

Samiei, M. & Telvari, A.A.R. (2008). Investigation of hydrological drought severity and duration at Tehran province watersheds. Pajouhesh-va-Sazandegi, 21(2), 21-27 (In Persian).

Samiei, M. (2004). Regional generalization of low flows in Tehran Province. M.S. Thesis, Watershed Management, Tehran University (In Persian).