Spatiotemporal heterogeneity in meteorological and hydrological drought patterns and propagations influenced by climatic variability, LULC change, and human regulations

作者：Yunyun Li, Yunyun Li, Yi Huang, Yanchun Li, Yanchun Li, Hongxue Zhang, Jingjing Fan, Qian Deng, Xuemei Wang · 发表于：Scientific Reports · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1038/s41598-024-56526-z · 被引用次数：44 · 研究领域：Hydrology and Drought Analysis、Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies、Climate variability and models

This study aims to quantify meteorological-hydrological drought propagations and examine the potential impacts by climatic variability, LULC change (LULC), and human regulations. An integrated observation-modeling framework quantifies drought propagation intervals and assesses mechanisms influencing hydrological droughts. Meteorological droughts are characterized using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), and hydrological droughts are assessed through the Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI) across diverse climatic zones. Cross-correlation analysis between SPEI and SSI time series identifies the lag time associated with the highest correlation as the drought propagation interval. Mechanisms are investigated via a coupled empirical-process modeling framework incorporating the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Discrepancies between simulated and observed SSI time series help quantify the extent of human regulation impacts on hydrological drought characteristics and propagation. The Yellow River Basin (YRB), divided into six subzones based on climate characteristics, is selected as the case study. Key findings include: (1) Meteorological droughts were extremely severe across most YRB during the 1990s, while the 2000s showed some mitigation primarily due to precipitation increases. (2) Hydrological droughts and propagation times from meteorology to hydrology demonstrated substantial spatiotemporal variability. In general, summer propagation times we...