Droughts adversely impact rural and urban communities, industry, primary production and, thus, a country's economy. Drought monitoring is directed to detecting the onset, persistence and severity of the drought. In this study, meteorological drought indices such as the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) and deciles were assessed to investigate how well these indices reflect drought conditions in Victoria, Australia. The Theory of Runs was also used to identify the drought deficit. The study uses 55 years (1955–2010) of monthly precipitation and reference evapotranspiration data for five selected meteorological stations in Victoria, Australia. Results show that drought characterization using SPI and RDI provides a standardized classification of severity thus exhibiting advantages over deciles. As RDI considers both rainfall and potential evapotranspiration in calculations, it could be sensitive to climatic variability. For characterizing agricultural droughts, the application of the RDI is recommended. The use of the SPI was shown to be satisfactory for assessing and monitoring meteorological droughts. The SPI was also successful in detecting the onset and the end of historical droughts for the selected events.
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Research Article|March 21 2014
Assessing droughts using meteorological drought indices in Victoria, Australia
Siti Nazahiyah Rahmat
Siti Nazahiyah Rahmat
1School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia2Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia
E-mail: s3321794@student.rmit.edu.au
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Niranjali Jayasuriya
Niranjali Jayasuriya
1School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia
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Muhammed Bhuiyan
Muhammed Bhuiyan
1School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia
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Hydrology Research (2014) 46 (3): 463-476.
Article history
Received:
July 12 2013
Accepted:
February 22 2014
Citation
Siti Nazahiyah Rahmat, Niranjali Jayasuriya, Muhammed Bhuiyan; Assessing droughts using meteorological drought indices in Victoria, Australia. Hydrology Research 1 June 2015; 46 (3): 463–476. doi: https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2014.105
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