Assessing socio-economic drought evolution characteristics and their possible meteorological driving force

Abstract

Droughts are among the most damaging environmental disasters that may have destructive damages on societal properties and lives. Generally, socio-economic drought occurs when water resources systems could not fulfil the water demand. Additionally, it is not to be overlooked the role of local reservoirs in modifying uneven distribution of water and coping with climatic extremes. This study examined the evolution characteristics of the socio-economic droughts via applying a Multivariate Standardized Reliability and Resilience Index (MSRRI). Furthermore, the influences of anomalous atmospheric circulation on the socio-economic droughts were explored through adopting the cross wavelet analysis to investigate the meteorological driving force behind the socio-economic droughts. Results mainly indicated that (1) the MSRRI has proven to be effective in evaluating socio-economic droughts for its integration of inflow-demand reliability and water storage resilience indexes; (2) the MSRRI series in Datong River Basin (DRB) has a non-significant increasing trend at annual scale with apparent periods (17 and 22 years) and (3) the comprehensive effects of ENSO, EASM and PNA contribute to the socio-economic drought variations, and the ENSO has strongest impacts than others. The findings in this study benefit local socioeconomic drought mitigation and water resources planning and management.

Large-Scale Linkages of Socioeconomic Drought with Climate Variability and Its Evolution Characteristics in Northwest China

“…For specifics, IDR<0 signifies a low-inflow occurrence (i.e., hydrological drought) relative to water demand, whilst WSR>0 represents the reservoir storage is sufficient for demand. erefore, there is a phenomenon that hydrological indicators symbolize the occurrence of a drought, but the demand is satisfied by available storage, indicating that a hydrological drought may not cause a socioeconomic drought [18]. In contrary, when IDR>0 and WSR<0, it corresponds to a situation in which there is no hydrological drought based on input to reservoirs, while the system is still suffering from a socioeconomic drought as the available storage cannot meet the demand.…”

“…Considering the different modes of reservoir operation and management, Guo et al [10] improved the MSRRI under the effect of reservoir operation rules. Zhao et al [18] applied this index to Datong River Basin and compared it with historical drought events. ese studies indicate that the MSRRI has a good performance in the evaluation of socioeconomic drought.…”

A Probabilistic Approach for Characterization of Sub-Annual Socioeconomic Drought Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) Relationships in a Changing Environment

“…Previous studies have used a wide range of methods to assess socioeconomic drought hazard [4,[6][7][8][12][13][14][15]. However, studies that discuss methods for assessing changes in intensity, duration, and frequency relationships of sub-annual socioeconomic droughts under nonstationary conditions are limited.…”

The Influence of a Prolonged Meteorological Drought on the Catchment Water Storage Capacity: A Hydrological Model Perspective

“…A 71 socio-economic drought is associated with the failure of water resources systems to meet water 72 demands as a result of a weather-related shortfall in the water supply. Recently, many studies have 73 been carried out on the links between different drought types, e.g., the link between the 74 meteorological and hydrological droughts (Haslinger et meteorological and agricultural droughts (Huang et al, 2015;Wu et al, 2016), and the link between 77 meteorological and socio-economic droughts (Zhao et al, 2019). However, little attention has been 78 paid to the causality between the meteorological drought with changes in catchment properties 79…”