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 Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and 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 4,800 events based on SPEI-3 and 4,500 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 Asia, and Australia, the recent progressive temperature increase outbalanced the increase in precipitation causing more frequent and severe droughts.
SPINONI Jonathan;
MARINHO FERREIRA BARBOSA Paulo;
DE JAGER Alfred;
MCCORMICK Niall;
NAUMANN Gustavo;
VOGT Juergen;
MAGNI Diego;
MASANTE Dario;
MAZZESCHI Marco;
2020-04-27
ELSEVIER
JRC115672
2214-5818 (online),
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214581818303136,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC115672,
10.1016/j.ejrh.2019.100593 (online),
