Files and links (2)
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open
Journal article
Catchment-scale drought: capturing the whole drought cycle using multiple indicators
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Vol.24(4), pp.1985-2002
22/04/2020
Metrics
2 File views/ downloads
24 Record Views
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites
Abstract
Global agricultural drought policy has shifted towards promoting drought preparedness and climate resilience in favor of disaster-relief-based strategies. For this approach to be successful, drought predictability and methods for assessing the many aspects of drought need to be improved. Therefore, this study aims to bring together meteorological and hydrological measures of drought as well as vegetation and soil moisture data to assess how droughts begin, propagate and subsequently terminate for a catchment in eastern Australia. For the study area, 13 meteorological drought periods persisting more than 6 months were identified over the last 100 years. During these periods, vegetation health, soil moisture and streamflow declined; however, all of the indicators recovered quickly post-drought, with no evidence of extended impacts on the rainfall–runoff response, as has been observed elsewhere. Furthermore, drought initiation and propagation were found to be tightly coupled to the combined state of large-scale ocean–atmosphere climate drivers (e.g., the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole and the Southern Annular Mode), whereas termination was caused by persistent synoptic systems (e.g., low-pressure troughs). The combination of climatic factors, topography, soils and vegetation are believed to be what makes the study catchments more resilient to drought than others in eastern Australia. This study diversifies traditional approaches to studying droughts by quantifying the catchment response to drought using a range of measures that could also be applied in other catchments globally. This is a key step towards improved drought management.
Details
- Title
- Catchment-scale drought: capturing the whole drought cycle using multiple indicators
- Creators
- Abraham J Gibson - University of Newcastle AustraliaDanielle C Verdon-Kidd - University of Newcastle AustraliaGreg R Hancock - University of Newcastle AustraliaGarry Willgoose - University of Newcastle Australia
- Publication Details
- Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Vol.24(4), pp.1985-2002
- Publisher
- Copernicus GmbH
- Identifiers
- 991012995595002368
- Copyright
- © Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article