SPI-Based Analyses of Drought Changes over the Past 60 Years in China's Major Crop-Growing Areas

This study analyzes the changes in drought patterns in China’s major crop-growing areas over the past 60 years. The analysis was done using both weather station data and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) rainfall data to calculate the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). The results showed that the occurrences of extreme drought were the most serious in recent years in the Southwest China and Sichuan crop-growing areas. The Yangtze River (MLRY) and South China crop-growing areas experienced extreme droughts during 1960–1980, whereas the Northeast China and Huang–Huai–Hai crop-growing areas experienced extreme droughts around 2003. The analysis showed that the SPIs calculated by TRMM data at time scales of one, three, and six months were reliable for monitoring drought in the study regions, but for 12 months, the SPIs calculated by gauge and TRMM data showed less consistency. The analysis of the spatial distribution of droughts over the past 15 years using TMI rainfall data revealed that more than 60% of the area experienced extreme drought in 2011 over the MLRY region and in 1998 over the Huang–Huai–Hai region. The frequency of different intensity droughts presented significant spatial heterogeneity in each crop-growing region.

[1]  Zhenchun Hao,et al.  An agricultural drought index to incorporate the irrigation process and reservoir operations: a case study in the Tarim River Basin. , 2016 .

[2]  A. Dai.  Drought under global warming: a review , 2011 .

[3]  Yan Zeng,et al.  Evaluation of TRMM 3 B 43 Precipitation Data for Drought Monitoring in Jiangsu Province , China , 2016 .

[4]  José Agustín Breña-Naranjo,et al.  The Use of TRMM 3B42 Product for Drought Monitoring in Mexico , 2016 .

[5]  A. Dai.  Increasing drought under global warming in observations and models , 2013 .

[6]  S. Vicente‐Serrano,et al.  Standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) revisited: parameter fitting, evapotranspiration models, tools, datasets and drought monitoring , 2014 .

[7]  S. Vicente‐Serrano,et al.  A Multiscalar Drought Index Sensitive to Global Warming: The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index , 2009 .

[8]  Qiang Zhang,et al.  Variations in droughts over China: 1951–2003 , 2005 .

[9]  S. Quiring,et al.  Evaluating the utility of the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) for monitoring meteorological drought in Texas , 2010 .

[10]  I. Sandholt,et al.  A simple interpretation of the surface temperature/vegetation index space for assessment of surface moisture status , 2002 .

[11]  Qiming Qin,et al.  Monitoring Drought over the Conterminous United States Using MODIS and NCEP Reanalysis-2 Data , 2010 .

[12]  Hongwei Zeng,et al.  The evaluation of TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) in drought monitoring in the Lancang River Basin , 2012, Journal of Geographical Sciences.

[13]  T. McKee,et al.  THE RELATIONSHIP OF DROUGHT FREQUENCY AND DURATION TO TIME SCALES , 1993 .

[14]  Baolong Wang,et al.  Extreme drought changes in Southwest China from 1960 to 2009 , 2013, Journal of Geographical Sciences.

[15]  H. Tao,et al.  Evaluation of TRMM 3B43 Precipitation Data for Drought Monitoring in Jiangsu Province, China , 2016 .

[16]  T. N. Krishnamurti,et al.  The status of the tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) after two years in orbit , 2000 .

[17]  Richard R. Heim,et al.  Are droughts becoming more frequent or severe in China based on the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index: 1951–2010? , 2011 .

[18]  Sharon E. Nicholson,et al.  Validation of TRMM and Other Rainfall Estimates with a High-Density Gauge Dataset for West Africa. Part II: Validation of TRMM Rainfall Products , 2003 .

[19]  G. Jia,et al.  Monitoring meteorological drought in semiarid regions using multi-sensor microwave remote sensing data , 2013 .

[20]  T. Jiang,et al.  Spatial Variation and Trends in PDSI and SPI Indices and Their Relation to Streamflow in 10 Large Regions of China , 2010 .

[21]  Célia M. Gouveia,et al.  The 2009/10 Drought in China: Possible Causes and Impacts on Vegetation , 2012 .

[22]  Bin Wang,et al.  How to Measure the Strength of the East Asian Summer Monsoon , 2008 .

[23]  Glenn Hyman,et al.  Strategic approaches to targeting technology generation: Assessing the coincidence of poverty and drought-prone crop production , 2008 .

[24]  C. W. Thornthwaite.  An approach toward a rational classification of climate. , 1948 .

[25]  Jianqi Sun,et al.  Changes in Drought Characteristics over China Using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index , 2015 .

[26]  George Tsakiris,et al.  An Enhanced Effective Reconnaissance Drought Index for the Characterisation of Agricultural Drought , 2017, Environmental Processes.

[27]  N. Cressie.  The origins of kriging , 1990 .

[28]  Pietro Ceccato,et al.  An agricultural drought severity index using quasi-climatological anomalies of remotely sensed data , 2016 .

[29]  Dennis P. Lettenmaier,et al.  Soil Moisture Drought in China, 1950–2006 , 2011 .

[30]  R. Heim.  A Review of Twentieth-Century Drought Indices Used in the United States , 2002 .

[31]  Xi Li,et al.  Evaluation of IMERG and TRMM 3B43 Monthly Precipitation Products over Mainland China , 2016, Remote. Sens..

[32]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  Estimating Bias of Satellite-Based Precipitation Estimates , 2006 .