A new global database of meteorological drought events from 1951 to 2016

作者：Jonathan Spinoni, Paulo Barbosa, Alfred de Jager, Niall McCormick, Gustavo Naumann, J. Vogt, Diego Magni, Dario Masante, Marco Mazzeschi · 发表于：Journal of Hydrology Regional Studies · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.1016/j.ejrh.2019.100593 · 被引用次数：464 · 研究领域：Hydrology and Drought Analysis、Climate variability and models、Precipitation Measurement and Analysis

STUDY REGION: This study has three spatial scales: global (0.5°), macro-regional, and country scale. The database of drought events has specific entries for each macro-region and country. STUDY FOCUS: We constructed a database of meteorological drought events from 1951 to 2016, now hosted by the Global Drought Observatory of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. Events were detected at macro-regional and country scale based on the separate analysis of the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) at different accumulation scales (from 3 to 72 months), using as input the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) and Climatic Research Unit (CRU) Time Series datasets. The database includes approximately 4800 events based on SPEI-3 and 4500 based on SPI-3. Each event is described by its start and end date, duration, intensity, severity, peak, average and maximum area in drought, and a special score to classify 52 mega-droughts. NEW HYDROLOGICAL INSIGHTS FOR THE REGION UNDER STUDY: We derived trends in drought frequency and severity, separately for SPI and SPEI at a 12-month accumulation scale, which is usually related to hydrological droughts. Results show several drought hotspots in the last decades: Amazonia, southern South America, the Mediterranean region, most of Africa, north-eastern China and, to a lesser extent, central Asia and southern Australia. Over North America, central Europe, central A...