Assessment of Evaporative Demand Drought Index for drought analysis in Peninsular Malaysia
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2024
Abstract
An effective drought monitoring tool is essential for the development of timely drought early warning system. This study evaluates Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) as a drought indicator in measuring spatiotemporal evolution of droughts over Peninsular Malaysia during 1989-2018. The modified Mann-Kendall and Sen's slope tests were performed to detect the presence of monotonic trends in EDDI, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and their related climate variables. The performance of EDDI in capturing the drought onset, evolutions and demise of historical severe droughts was also compared with SPI and SPEI at multiple timescales. EDDI demonstrates strong spatiotemporal correlations with SPI and SPEI and comparable performance in historical drought events identification. At sub -monthly timescale, 2 -week EDDI displays equivalent drought severities and durations for all historical severe droughts corresponding to the monthly EDDI. In the case when rainfall deficits are normalized in an otherwise warm and dry month, EDDI may serve as a great alternative to SPI and SPEI due to it being sensitive to the changes in prevalent atmospheric conditions. Collectively, the results fill in the knowledge gaps on drought evolutions from the evaporative perspective and highlight the efficacy of EDDI as a valuable drought early warning tool for Peninsular Malaysia. Future study should explore the physical mechanisms behind the development of flash drought and the role of evaporation in the drought propagation processes.
Keywords
Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI), Trend analysis, Sub-monthly timescale, Flash drought, Evapotranspiration, Peninsular Malaysia
Divisions
sch_civ
Funders
Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS/1/2018/TK01/UM/02/3),Hundred Talent Program of Sun Yat-sen University (37000-12230031),Presidents' Forum of Southeast Asia and Taiwan Universities under the Joint Research Scheme (ST038-2021)
Publication Title
Science of the Total Environment
Volume
917
Publisher
Elsevier
Publisher Location
RADARWEG 29, 1043 NX AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS