SPI-Based Spatiotemporal Drought over Sri Lanka

Abstract

Drought is one of the most significant hazards in Sri Lanka. Status of drought in Sri Lanka was assessed using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) at 3, 6, and 12 months’ time scales using monthly rainfall (1970 to 2017) data of 54 weather stations. The frequency of drought events was evaluated using SPI, and trend of SPI was also detected using the Mann–Kendall (MK) test and Sen’s slope estimator. The result based on SPI identified hydrological years 1975-76, 1982-83, 1986-87, 1988-89, 2000-01, 2001-02, 2013-14, and 2016-17 as drought years for 52, 32, 35, 33, 33, 31, 31, and 31% of tested stations (54), respectively, at annual time scale. Comparison of the SPI at different time scales revealed that more drought events (SPI ≤ −1) occurred during Yala season than Maha cropping season. Considering the Thiessen polygon average rainfall, more frequent drought events occurred in the dry zone (57%) than the wet (49%) and intermediate zone (47%) at the annual time scale. SPI trend results showed greater increase in drought (59% of stations) during Yala seasons as compared to the Maha cropping season (15% of stations) in Sri Lanka.