Abstract
Worldwide the general connotation of the term drought in any area is significant shortage of water from the lack of rainfall. The rainfall in a given area is not the same every year and as discussed earlier it may range from half of the normal in one year to twice the normal the next year. This causes either too much of water from high rainfall resulting in floods or too less water from low rainfall resulting in droughts. The periodic cycle of floods and droughts is a bane to economy. In this chapter, we study abnormally low rainfall leading to droughts and in the subsequent chapter we will discuss abnormally high rainfall leading to floods.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bates, C.G., 1935. Climatic characteristics of the plains. In: M Silcox, F. A. et al. (editors), Possibilities of shelterbelt planting in the plains region. Washington, D.C.
Dhar, O.N., Kulkarni, A.K. and Ghose, G.C., 1978. Rainfall distribution over Indian subdivisions during the wettest and the driest monsoons of the period 1901 to 1960. Hydrological Sciences Bulletin, IAHS, 23, 2.
Dhar, O.N., Rakhecha, P.R. and Kulkarni, A.K., 1979. Rainfall study of severe drought years of India. Proceedings, Hydrological Aspects of Droughts, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
Dhar, O.N., Mandal, B.N. and Rakhecha, P.R., 1982. Absence of tropical disturbances and rainfall distribution during the summer monsoon months over India. Arch. Met. Geoph. Biokl., Ser. A, 31, pp. 117–126.
Dhar, O.N., Mandal, B.N. and Rakhecha, P.R., 1984. Rainfall distribution over India during the monsoon months in the absence of depressions and cyclonic storms. Mausam, 35, No. 1, pp. 309–314.
Government of India, 1976. Climate and Agriculture. Part IV of the Report of the National Commission on Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, New Delhi.
Gibbs, W.T. and Maher, J.V., 1967. Rainfall deciles as drought indicators. Bull. No. 48, Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia.
Hoyt, W.G., 1942. Droughts. In: Meinzer O.E (ed.), Hydrology, Dover Publications, INC, New York, 579–591.
India Meteorological Department, 1971. Rainfall and droughts in India. Report of the Drought Research Unit, Meteorological Department, Poona.
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), 1995. Monthly and seasonal rainfall series for all-India homogeneous regions and meteorological subdivisions; 1871–1994, IITM, Research Report No. RR-065, 113 pp.
Mooley, D.A. and Parthasarathy, B., 1983. Indian summer monsoon and El Nino. PAGEOPH, 121, No. 2, pp. 339–352.
Parthasarathy, B., Sontakke, N.A., Munot, A.A. and Kothawale, D.K., 1987. Droughts/ Floods in the summer monsoon season over different meteorological subdivisions of India for the period 1871–1984. Journal of Climatology, 7, pp. 57–70.
Penman, H.L., 1948. Natural evaporation from open water, bare soil and grass. Proc. Roy. Soc. Series A, 193, pp. 120–145.
Ropelewski, C.F. and Halpert, M.F., 1987. Global and regional scale precipitation patterns associated with the El Nino Southern Oscillation. Monthly Weather Rev., 119, pp. 1606–1626.
Thornthwaite, C.W., 1948. A approach towards a rational classification of climate. Geog. Rev., 38, pp. 55–94.
Thornthwaite, C.W. and Mather, J.R., 1955. The water balance. Publications in Climatology, Laboratory of Climatology, Vol. 8, No. 1, 104 pp.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 1997. World Atlas of Desertification (2nd edition), Arnold, London, NW1 3BH, 182 pp.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Capital Publishing Company
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rakhecha, P.R., Singh, V.P. (2009). Droughts. In: Applied Hydrometeorology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9844-4_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9844-4_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-9843-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-9844-4
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)