Characterization of meteorological droughts in the Upper Bhima Catchment of Maharashtra State, India

Abstract

Water scarcity in arid and semiarid parts of Maharashtra is a dominant pattern. The situation exacerbates during prolonged drought years. Therefore, it is fundamental to understand the characteristics of historical drought events. This chapter focuses on the characterization of meteorological droughts in a representative drought-prone catchment of the state-the Upper Bhima Catchment. The monthly rainfall records for 39 subdistricts for 1951-2012 are used to obtain rainfall deviations and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) to characterize meteorological droughts (onset, severity, duration, intensity, and withdrawal of drought). About 13 drought events with - 0.92 12-month SPI-based drought intensity were reported in the catchment over 1951-2012. The years 1971-72, 2002-03, and 2011-12 were the extremely dry droughts events. The average interarrival time between two consecutive drought events in the catchment was found to be 3 years and 6 months with an average drought duration of 1 year and 10 months.