A new approach for a drought composite index

Author(s)

Bravo, Raissa Zurli Bittencourt ^[1] ; Cunha, Ana Paula Martins do Amaral ^[2] ; Leiras, Adriana ^[1] ; Cyrino Oliveira, Fernando Luiz ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Pontificial Catholic Univ Rio De Janeiro, Dept Ind Engn, Rio De Janeiro - Brazil

^[2] Natl Ctr Monitoring & Early Warnings Nat Disaster, Sao Jose Dos Campos - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: NATURAL HAZARDS; v. 108, n. 1, p. 755-773, AUG 2021.
• Web of Science Citations: 2

Abstract

Drought is one of the most critical meteorological hazards that has a devastating effect on natural habitats, ecosystems, and many economic and social sectors. Due to these severe impacts of drought events, many studies have focused on drought monitoring, prediction, and risk analysis to aid drought preparedness plans and mitigation measures. This paper presents a new drought composite index (DCI) to measure the intensity and frequency of the hazard component of meteorological drought. The DCI considers multiple indicators, such as precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, wind speed, relative humidity, and sunshine duration. The DCI is validated through an application to the Brazilian semiarid context. Based on the expert's opinion, we define the weight of each indicator using the analytical hierarchy process. The results were compared with two other drought indices to provide an initial validation because the other indices are not exclusively meteorological indices. The DCI estimates for January 2019 show that the semiarid central region is the most critical. The findings also indicate that the drought intensity is growing in this region. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 14/50848-9 - INCT 2014: INCT for Climate Change
• Grantee: Jose Antonio Marengo Orsini
• Support Opportunities: Research Program on Global Climate Change - Thematic Grants