Monitoring Hydrometeorological Droughts Using a Simplified Precipitation Index

Abstract

Efficient water management plans should rely on quantitative metrics for assessing water resource shortage scenarios. This study develops a simplified precipitation index (PI) requiring precipitation data only in order to assess hydrometeorological droughts affecting various hydrological systems. The PI index is inspired by the famous Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), and it aims to provide the same indication for drought severity and duration while overcoming the disadvantage of needing hydrological data normalization. Avoiding hydrological data normalization overcomes the non-satisfactory results of this procedure that were reported in previous studies. Analysis of groundwater drought drivers in the arid region of Kuwait is presented to test the index applicability at timescales 12 and 24 months using available historical precipitation data from 1958 to 2017. A bivariate joint probability analysis was conducted by Clayton copula to assess the occurrence of certain drought severities and durations. The results showed that PI is comparable to the original SPI and provides drought severity linearly propagating with respect to time. This index constitutes a simple means to help water managers assess and describe the impact of droughts in precipitation-controlled systems and establish appropriate water management plans.