Impact of global warming on the severity and recurrence of hydrological droughts: A case study from Central Indian Marathwada region.
Abstract
Extreme hydrologic events such as drought and flood are expected to increase in the near future due to climate change. Increased temperature due to global warming may not result in drought every time but may lead to a rather extreme drought event at the onset of a drought. This generates an alarming situation for regions that are already witnessing drought in its recent past. The central Indian provinces such as Vidarbha and Marathwada region is already highlighted in the World map on climate change due to frequent droughts and related farmer suicides. In the present study, we focussed on the severity and recurrence of hydrological drought by the analysis of historical precipitation data for the past 115 years from 1901. The drought assessment was carried out by computing time series standardized precipitation index (SPI). In order to understand the impact of climate change on the recurrence, duration, and magnitude or severity, we analysed the effect of two climate variables such as temperature and relative humidity using statistical trend analysis. We also compared the effect of drought severity on ground water storage by analysing the trends in groundwater storage anomaly computed from GRACE data for a period from 2004 to 2016. Average seasonal fluctuations in groundwater level were computed for a period of 22 years to analyse the effect of drought on groundwater recharge. The study indicates the usability of SPI Index in drought assessment as each of the drought event is indicated at groundwater storage level and average seasonal groundwater level fluctuation. Time series analysis of SPI index indicate that though the recurrence of drought shows a decreasing trend, the severity of drought is increasing and the worst severe drought event for the past three decades happened in the year 2015.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMNH33E1048K
- Keywords:
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- 4313 Extreme events;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 4319 Spatial modeling;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 4329 Sustainable development;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 4333 Disaster risk analysis and assessment;
- NATURAL HAZARDS