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An Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Changes in Drought Characteristics over India

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Hydrology in a Changing World

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Abstract

Regional drought mitigation efforts depend on reliable estimates of intensity and severity of drought events. Most operational methods used for drought classification do not account modeling uncertainties and provide discrete drought classification. However, when uncertainty estimates in classification are available, they can be used to make informed decisions. This study compares a gamma-mixture-model-based probabilistic drought classification method that quantifies uncertainties in drought classification with the standardized precipitation index (SPI) that provides discrete classification. Further, if the precipitation data are nonstationary, then classical methods of drought classification are not applicable, and an alternate method for drought classification for trend stationary precipitation series is presented. This method is tested on synthetic and real-world precipitation data over India. The alternate method offers flexibility in modeling nonstationary time series. The advantages and limitations of this method are discussed along with a set of concluding remarks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Ganeshchandra Mallya & Rao S. Govindaraju

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, UP, 208016, India

    Shivam Tripathi

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  1. Ganeshchandra Mallya
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  3. Rao S. Govindaraju
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Correspondence to Rao S. Govindaraju .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hydrological Processes, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Shailesh Kumar Singh

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi, India

    C.T. Dhanya

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Mallya, G., Tripathi, S., Govindaraju, R.S. (2019). An Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Changes in Drought Characteristics over India. In: Singh, S., Dhanya, C. (eds) Hydrology in a Changing World. Springer Water. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02197-9_2

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