×K10. Propagation and correlation of different droughts types and their linkages to the low flow

Effective drought management is essential to help lessen its impacts and build the resilience of communities vulnerable to droughts. Droughts are categorized as meteorological, hydrological and agricultural. Hydrological droughts occur when the river flow, reservoir and groundwater levels go down after a prolonged meteorological drought. Similarly, agricultural droughts are initiated when the meteorological drought starts affecting plant water availability and crop production. Although intrinsically linked, hydrological and agricultural droughts usually, do not start or break immediately after the meteorological droughts are started or broken. There are only a few studies quantitatively investigating how these droughts are correlated and how they propagate in different climatic conditions across the world. The extent of lag shown by the hydrological/agricultural droughts in response to the meteorological drought and its spatial and temporal variabilities are also not widely known. Furthermore, understanding of relationships between climatological forcings and low stream flow response is necessary to understand the drought characteristics. Therefore, we invite papers from researchers working on drought and related areas. Although not exhaustive, the following topics give indications of the areas of interest for this session.

  1. Examination of the suitability of different indicators of droughts (e.g. standardised precipitation index) in regions with different present and future climates.
  2. Understanding of drought propagations and their correlation from across the world.
  3. Investigation of possible changes in the nature of droughts (e.g. intensity, magnitude and duration) due to changes in future climate.
  4. Spatial correlation and cluster analysis of droughts for identifying drought thresholds and patterns across regions.
  5. Investigation of the effects of drought on streamflows and groundwater tables.
  6. Possible changes in modelling techniques and model structures in response to future droughts.

Key topics: Drought, Climate change, Low flow, Hydrology