Retrospective Analysis of the Palmer Drought Severity Index in the Semi-Arid Pampas Region, Argentina

Scian, Beatriz Viviana; Donnari, M.

doi:10.1002/(sici)1097-0088(19970315)17:3<313::aid-joc112>3.0.co;2-w

Cited by 31 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 7 publications

(4 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Third, we re-derive Equation (17) given that it has constants that should vary with location because the progression of droughts varies from place to place. Even though researchers such as Scian and Donnari (1997) and Cancelliere et al (1996) used the original equation in areas other than the USA with some success, we feel that they could have done better if they had changed the coefficients of Equation (17) to reflect the local conditions better. The plot of Z for the worst droughts of various durations often gives a straight line (Palmer, 1965).…”

Section: Suggested Improvements To the Pdsimentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Based on the PDSI, Briffa et al (1994) analysed the surface moisture variability across Europe, and Jones et al (1996) reviewed the moisture availability of Europe simulated by the Hadley Centre general circulation model. Scian and Donnari (1997) examined the PDSI in the semi-arid Pampas region of Argentina; they used pan evaporation instead of the Thornthwaite method. Heddinghaus and Sabol (1991) adjusted the rules for appropriating a value to X when there was no knowledge as to whether a wet or a dry spell had been established.…”

Section: Pdsi Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Drought indices and their application to East Africa

Ntale

Gan

2003

Intl Journal of Climatology

229

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study analysed and modified (where necessary) the properties of three drought indices: the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI), the Bhalme-Mooley index (BMI) and the standardized precipitation index (SPI). We modified the original PDSI's recursive formula, potential runoff, and Z index, which produced more realistic results than the original PDSI (designed for the USA) for East Africa. We improved the SPI by first using a plotting position formula designed for the Pearson type III (P3) distribution to transform the 'smoothed' precipitation data into non-exceedance probabilities, which we then transformed into standard P3 variates by the regional flood index method. The modified SPI depicted East Africa's drought conditions more accurately than the original SPI. Using the three indices and East Africa as a case example, we identified eight assessment criteria to determine the most appropriate index for detecting drought events on a regional basis. BMI produced results that are highly correlated to those of the modified PDSI, which suggested that precipitation alone could explain most of the variability of East African droughts. Furthermore, among the three indices, SPI is more appropriate for monitoring East African droughts because it is more easily adapted to the local climate, has modest data requirements, can be computed at almost any time scale, provides relatively consistent power spectra spatially, has no theoretical upper or lower bounds, and is easy to interpret.

show abstract

Section: Suggested Improvements To the Pdsimentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Pdsi Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drought indices and their application to East Africa

Ntale

Gan

2003

Intl Journal of Climatology

229

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Similarly, in the "Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin" the PDSI for climatic divisions of the United States is shown during the growing season (Alley, 1985). There are also successful applications of the PDSI in Canada (Louie, 1986) and other parts of the world as for example, Australia (Kothavala, 1999), Argentina (Scian & Donnari, 1997), and Hungary (Szinell et al, 1998). The PDSI has also shown that it could be a useful tool for the detection of droughts in Greece (Dalezios et al, 1991).…”

Section: The Palmer Drought Severity Index (Pdsi)mentioning

confidence: 98%

Severity-duration-frequency analysis of droughts and wet periods in Greece

Dalezios¹,

Λουκάς

Vasiliades

et al. 2000

Hydrological Sciences Journal

115

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is an escalation in the frequency and severity of extreme events due to a number of environmental and/or anthropogenic factors. Droughts and exceptionally wet periods are regional phenomena, which are considered as major environmental extremes, especially in semiarid regions of the world, such as Greece. The development of severity-duration-frequency (SDF) relationships of droughts and wet periods over Greece is important in contemporary hydroclimatic and agroclimatic design and planning in the country. The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) is used for a quantitative description of droughts and wet periods. Statistical tests and visual inspection indicate that the EV1 (Gumbel) frequency distribution fits satisfactorily all the identified durations of droughts and wet periods, respectively. Moreover, the SDF curves show that decreasing frequencies (i.e. increasing recurrence intervals) correspond to increasing severities of droughts and wet periods, respectively. The developed SDF relationships are used to produce tables and isoseverity maps of Greece for each identified duration and all the selected return periods or frequencies, which constitute an essential aid for design purposes. The results of the study indicate that there is a decreasing pattern of the severities of droughts and wet periods from west to east and that, for similar durations and return periods, the wet spells are, in general, more extreme than droughts in Greece.Analyse sévérité-durée-fréquence des périodes sèches et humides en GrèceRésumé La fréquence et la sévérité des événements extrêmes dus à différents facteurs naturels ou/et anthropiques augmentent. Les sécheresses et les périodes exceptionnellement arrosées sont des phénomènes régionaux, considérés comme des phénomènes extrêmes de première importance, en particulier dans les régions semiarides comme la Grèce. L'établissement de relations sévérité-durée-fréquence (SDF) s'y révèle importante à l'heure actuelle pour la conception et la planification hydro et agroclimatique. L'indice de sévérité de sécheresse de Palmer (Palmer Drought Severity Index-PDSI) a été utilisé pour décrire quantitativement les périodes sèches et humides. Les tests statistiques et l'appréciation visuelle montrent que la distribution de Gumbel (Extreme Value 1-EV1) rend bien compte de l'ensemble des durées observées des périodes sèches et humides. Les courbes SDF montrent de plus que les événements les plus sévères sont ceux dont la fréquence est la plus faible (c'est à dire ceux dont la durée de retour est la plus longue). Les relations SDF établies ont été utilisées pour élaborer à l'échelle de la Grèce des tables et des cartes d'égale sévérité pour différentes durées et pour différentes durées de retour qui constituent un outil essentiel d'aide à la conception. Les résultats de cette étude indiquent qu'il existe, pour une même durée et une même durée de retour, une tendance à la décroissance de la sévérité d'ouest en est, et que les épisodes humides sont, en général, plus sévères que les épisod...

show abstract

“…In North America, the most severe multi-year droughts of the last 150 years were the 'Civil War' drought (1856-1865, the 1870s and 1890s droughts, the infamous Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s, the late 1940s-mid 1950s southwestern drought and the present-day drought that has gripped the West since 1998 (Woodhouse and Overpeck, 1998;Cole et al, 2002;Fye et al, 2003;Herweijer et al, 2006;Seager et al, 2005a). In the southern part of South America, in a semi-arid area that encompasses the Andean foothills, the Sierra Cordoba and the Pampas in Argentina, along with Uruguay and southern Brazil, extended dry spells have also been noted in the 1930s and 1950s (Mechoso and Iribarren, 1992;Scian and Donnari, 1997;Robertson and Mechoso, 1998;Compagnucci et al, 2002), and inferred from tree-ring data in the 1860s and 1870s (Villalba et al, 1998). In addition, widespread drought conditions have been documented over much of central and eastern northern Europe during the 1860s and the late 1940s/early 1950s (Briffa et al, 1994) and over the European part of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) during the 1890s and 1930s (Meshcherskaya and Blazhevich, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The global footprint of persistent extra‐tropical drought in the instrumental era

Herweijer

Seager

2008

Intl Journal of Climatology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The major North American droughts as per instrumental records are shown to be part of a larger, global pattern of low‐frequency drought variability. Drought in western North America during the 1850s–1860s, 1870s, 1890s, 1930s and 1950s, is shown to coincide with the occurrence of prolonged dry spells in parts of Europe, southern South America and western Australia. Tropical land regions are mostly wet during these periods, with the exception of central east Africa, southern India and Sri Lanka, which are dry. The recent 1998–2003 period of drought in western North America reveals a similar global hydroclimatic ‘footprint’ with the exception of a wet southern South America and continued dry conditions in the Sahel. Common to each of the six droughts is the persistence of anomalously cool east central tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs). For the 1998–2003 case, the warming of SSTs everywhere outside of the east central tropical Pacific may be influencing precipitation and masking the influence of persistent precipitation anomalies driven from the tropical Pacific alone. In general, examination of these major historical extra‐tropical droughts reveals a hemispherically and, in the extra‐tropics, a zonally symmetric pattern consistent with forcing from the Tropics.Ensembles of model simulations forced by observed SSTs globally (Global Ocean Global Atmosphere, GOGA) and only within the tropical Pacific (Pacific Ocean Global Atmosphere‐Mixed Layer, POGA‐ML) are both able to capture the global pattern of the persistent extra‐tropical drought regimes since the mid‐nineteenth century. This implies that the recently demonstrated link between SST forcing and drought in North America is in fact only one part of a global hydroclimatic response to the persistence of cool SST anomalies in the tropical Pacific. Indian Ocean SST forcing is required to capture the droughts in central east Africa. Over Europe, the modelled, low‐frequency precipitation signal is unrealistically ENSO dominated, as the model does not faithfully reproduce the observed history of low‐frequency NAO variability. Overall, our results suggest that the global pattern of persistent drought appears to be a low‐frequency version of interannual ENSO‐forced variability. Copyright © 2008 Royal Meteorological Society

show abstract

Retrospective Analysis of the Palmer Drought Severity Index in the Semi-Arid Pampas Region, Argentina

Cited by 31 publications

References 7 publications

Drought indices and their application to East Africa

Drought indices and their application to East Africa

Severity-duration-frequency analysis of droughts and wet periods in Greece

The global footprint of persistent extra‐tropical drought in the instrumental era

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About