144
August, and September. The results also highlight the wide range of annual
precipitation in the state, with places where precipitation averages 200 mm/year and
areas where it reaches up to 2400 mm/year. The analysis confirms the dominant
effect of the American monsoon season on the temporal pattern of rainfall in the
area of study.
A decrease in precipitation to values of 0.5–0.9 mm/year during the dry months
was observed in most of the area in contrast with an increase in values of 1.0–
1.5 mm/year in the wet months. The fact that this trend was not statistically significant for many of the locations could be attributed to the effects of climate variability
factors, such as El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation (PDO).
The complexity of drought as a dangerous phenomenon and its interactions with
socio-ecological systems has limited the progress of generating effective drought
management and mitigation plans. However, quantifying the spatial and temporal
occurrence of drought is a valuable tool to decision makers towards reducing social
and ecological vulnerability at the time a drought occurs. Using the SPI 12 as an
indicator of drought, more than 53 episodes of drought were identified in the
35 years of data, as well as the areas where droughts events are most frequent. These
areas cover more than half of the state of Durango, mainly in its northwestern,
northern, and eastern regions. These drought events remained relatively constant
throughout the year, although a slight increase was observed in June and September.
Satellite observations offer a great opportunity for the operational monitoring of
droughts and rainfall. Current and future satellite missions could be used to develop
composite and multi-indicator drought models to improve early drought warning.
While there are tremendous opportunities, there are also enormous challenges,
including data continuity, unquantified uncertainty, sensor changes, and community
acceptability. One of the significant limitations of many of the currently available
satellite observations is their short temporal resolution. Many satellite missions and
relevant sensors provide only a decade of data, which may not be sufficient to study
droughts and precipitation trends from a climate perspective.
References
Ashouri H, Nguyen P, Thorstensen A, Hsu K-L, Sorooshian S, Braithwaite D (2016) Assessing the
efficacy of high-resolution satellite-based PERSIANN-CDR precipitation product in simulating streamflow. J Hydrometeorol 17(7):2061–2076
Ayanlade A, Radeny M, Morton JF, Muchaba T (2018) Rainfall variability and drought characteristics in two agro-climatic zones: an assessment of climate change challenges in Africa. Sci
Total Environ 630:728–737
Beguería S, Vicente-Serrano SM, Beguería MS (2017) Package SPEI, Calculation of the
Standardised Precipitation-vapotranspiration, version 1.7. http://sac.csic.es/spei
Chen Y, Han D (2016) Big data and hydroinformatics. J Hydroinf 18(4):599–614
Comrie AC, Glenn EC (1998) Principal components-based regionalization of precipitation regimes
across the southwest United States and northern Mexico, with an application to monsoon precipitation variability. Clim Res 10(3):201–215
D. A. Martinez-Cruz et al.
August, and September. The results also highlight the wide range of annual
precipitation in the state, with places where precipitation averages 200 mm/year and
areas where it reaches up to 2400 mm/year. The analysis confirms the dominant
effect of the American monsoon season on the temporal pattern of rainfall in the
area of study.
A decrease in precipitation to values of 0.5–0.9 mm/year during the dry months
was observed in most of the area in contrast with an increase in values of 1.0–
1.5 mm/year in the wet months. The fact that this trend was not statistically significant for many of the locations could be attributed to the effects of climate variability
factors, such as El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation (PDO).
The complexity of drought as a dangerous phenomenon and its interactions with
socio-ecological systems has limited the progress of generating effective drought
management and mitigation plans. However, quantifying the spatial and temporal
occurrence of drought is a valuable tool to decision makers towards reducing social
and ecological vulnerability at the time a drought occurs. Using the SPI 12 as an
indicator of drought, more than 53 episodes of drought were identified in the
35 years of data, as well as the areas where droughts events are most frequent. These
areas cover more than half of the state of Durango, mainly in its northwestern,
northern, and eastern regions. These drought events remained relatively constant
throughout the year, although a slight increase was observed in June and September.
Satellite observations offer a great opportunity for the operational monitoring of
droughts and rainfall. Current and future satellite missions could be used to develop
composite and multi-indicator drought models to improve early drought warning.
While there are tremendous opportunities, there are also enormous challenges,
including data continuity, unquantified uncertainty, sensor changes, and community
acceptability. One of the significant limitations of many of the currently available
satellite observations is their short temporal resolution. Many satellite missions and
relevant sensors provide only a decade of data, which may not be sufficient to study
droughts and precipitation trends from a climate perspective.
References
Ashouri H, Nguyen P, Thorstensen A, Hsu K-L, Sorooshian S, Braithwaite D (2016) Assessing the
efficacy of high-resolution satellite-based PERSIANN-CDR precipitation product in simulating streamflow. J Hydrometeorol 17(7):2061–2076
Ayanlade A, Radeny M, Morton JF, Muchaba T (2018) Rainfall variability and drought characteristics in two agro-climatic zones: an assessment of climate change challenges in Africa. Sci
Total Environ 630:728–737
Beguería S, Vicente-Serrano SM, Beguería MS (2017) Package SPEI, Calculation of the
Standardised Precipitation-vapotranspiration, version 1.7. http://sac.csic.es/spei
Chen Y, Han D (2016) Big data and hydroinformatics. J Hydroinf 18(4):599–614
Comrie AC, Glenn EC (1998) Principal components-based regionalization of precipitation regimes
across the southwest United States and northern Mexico, with an application to monsoon precipitation variability. Clim Res 10(3):201–215
D. A. Martinez-Cruz et al.