Evolution and Trends of Meteorological Drought and Wet Events over the Republic of Djibouti from 1961 to 2021

Abstract

Drought is a meteorological and hydrological phenomenon affecting the environment, agriculture, and socioeconomic conditions, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. A better understanding of drought characteristics over short and long timescales is therefore crucial for drought mitigation and long-term strategies. For the first time, this study evaluates the occurrence, duration, and intensity of drought over the Republic of Djibouti by using a long-term (1961–2021) rainfall time series at Djibouti Airport, completed by the CHIRPS precipitation product and local records from 35 weather stations. The drought is examined based on the Standardized Precipitation–Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) at 3-, 6-, 9-, 12-, and 24-month timescales, so as to document short-, medium-, and long-duration events. The SPEI and SPI showed a significant drying tendency for the indices computed over 12 and 24 months at Djibouti Airport. The eastern coastal region of the Republic of Djibouti was the most affected by the increased drought incidence in recent decades, with more than 80% of the extremely and severely dry events occurring within the period 2007–2017. In contrast, the western regions recorded a positive trend in their SPIs during the period 1981–2021, due to the dominance of the June–September (JJAS) rains, which tend to increase. However, in the last few decades, the whole country experienced the droughts of 2006/2007 and 2010/2011, which were the longest and most intense on record. Large-scale climate variability in the Indo-Pacific region partially affects drought in Djibouti. The SPI and SPEI are significantly positively correlated with the Indian Ocean Dipole during October–December (OND), while for JJAS the SPI and SPEI are negatively correlated with Nino3.4. The wet event in 2019 (OND) causing devastating floods in Djibouti city was linked with a positive IOD anomaly. This study provides essential information on the characteristics of drought in the Republic of Djibouti for decision-makers to better plan appropriate strategies for early warning systems to adapt and mitigate recurrent droughts that put the country’s agro-pastoral populations in a precarious situation.

Assessment of Meteorological Drought Trends in a Selected Coastal Basin Area in Poland—A Case Study

“…It is used in Europe [20], the USA [21], and Australia [22]. The variability of meteorological drought since the mid-twentieth century using the SPI was studied on a global scale [23,24], in different regions of the world, e.g., Iran [25], Africa [26][27][28], China [29][30][31][32], Bangladesh [33], Korea [34], as well as for the entire European continent [35][36][37] and its different regions, such as eastern and central Europe [38], the Carpathian Mountains [39], the Czech Land [40]. Taking into account global warming, future changes in the frequency and intensity of droughts in the coming decades are increasingly being studied, taking into account various scenarios of climate change [41][42][43].…”

Integrated Fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS Model for Assessing Managed Aquifer Recharge Potential in a Hot Dry Region: A Case Study of Djibouti at a Country Scale

“…The GCN250 dataset has a resolution of 250 m and can be downloaded in raster format. To establish the rainfall distribution throughout the country, the average annual rainfall at various stations was acquired from Dabar et al [50], and the precipitation raster layer (Figure 3d) was generated using the inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation method. Regarding the calculation of the NDVI illustrated in Figure 3e, Sentinel 2 imagery was employed, and the following formula was applied:…”

Atmospheric drivers of rainfall events in the Republic of Djibouti

“…They estimated that the 2008-2011 droughts caused an estimated 3.9% loss in the 4-year gross domestic product of the country. The eastern coastal region of the Republic of Djibouti was the most affected by the increased drought incidence in recent decades, with more than 80% of the extremely and severely dry events (SPI-12/SPEI-12 < −1.5) of the 1961-2021 period occurring during 2007-2017(Assowe Dabar et al, 2022. By contrast, many examples can be found of days with very high precipitation in Djibouti City, which caused severe flash floods and widespread destruction (Cherel et al, 2020;Said Chiré, 2015).…”