Towards Understanding Variability in Droughts in Response to Extreme Climate Conditions over the Different Agro-Ecological Zones of Pakistan

作者：Adil Dilawar, Baozhang Chen, Arfan Arshad, Lifeng Guo, Muhammad Irfan Ehsan, Yawar Hussain, Alphonse Kayiranga, Simon Measho, Huifang Zhang, Fei Wang, Xiaohong Sun, Mengyu Ge · 发表于：Sustainability · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.3390/su13126910 · 被引用次数：24 · 研究领域：Hydrology and Drought Analysis、Climate variability and models、Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics

Here, we provided a comprehensive analysis of long-term drought and climate extreme patterns in the agro ecological zones (AEZs) of Pakistan during 1980–2019. Drought trends were investigated using the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) at various timescales (SPEI-1, SPEI-3, SPEI-6, and SPEI-12). The results showed that droughts (seasonal and annual) were more persistent and severe in the southern, southwestern, southeastern, and central parts of the region. Drought exacerbated with slopes of −0.02, −0.07, −0.08, −0.01, and −0.02 per year. Drought prevailed in all AEZs in the spring season. The majority of AEZs in Pakistan’s southern, middle, and southwestern regions had experienced substantial warming. The mean annual temperature minimum (Tmin) increased faster than the mean annual temperature maximum (Tmax) in all zones. Precipitation decreased in the southern, northern, central, and southwestern parts of the region. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed a robust increase in temperature extremes with a variance of 76% and a decrease in precipitation extremes with a variance of 91% in the region. Temperature and precipitation extremes indices had a strong Pearson correlation with drought events. Higher temperatures resulted in extreme drought (dry conditions), while higher precipitation levels resulted in wetting conditions (no drought) in different AEZs. In most AEZs, drought occurrences were more responsive to precipitation. The current findin...