The effect of PET method on Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) calculation |
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| Institution: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China;2. College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China;3. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-2117, USA;4. Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-2117, USA;1. Agencia Estatal de Meteorología, Leonardo Prieto Castro, 8, 28040 Madrid, Spain;2. Dpto. Astrofísica y Física de la Atmósfera, Facultad de Física, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain;3. Estación Experiental de Aula Dei, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Avda. Montañana, 1005, 50059 Zaragoza, Spain;4. Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Avda. Montañana, 1005, 50059 Zaragoza, Spain;5. Dpto. Matemática Aplicada, Escuela de Ingeniería Informática, Universidad de Valladolid, Pza. de la Universidad, 1, 40005 Segovia, Spain;6. Instituto de Matemática Interdisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040, Spain |
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| Abstract: | Drought severity is conventionally assessed by drought indices. Several drought indices with varying complexity have been used in many geographical areas. Recently, a powerful drought index, the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI), is gaining wide acceptance mainly in the arid and semiarid climatic regions. Since RDI is based both on precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (PET), it is interesting to assess the effect of the PET calculation method on the drought severity characterisation obtained by RDI. This paper compares the results of RDI for various reference periods using some popular empirical PET methods with minimum data requirements. The selected methods are: Hargreaves, Thornthwaite, Blaney–Criddle and FAO Penman–Monteith (only temperature). The FAO Penman–Monteith method is used as reference method. The data used are from meteorological stations in Greece representing the mountainous and the coastal Mediterranean climatic conditions. No significant influence on RDI was detected by using the selected PET methods. However, the Hargreaves and FAO P–M (only T) methods performed relatively better. This supports the opinion that RDI is a robust drought index, not dependent upon the PET calculation method. |
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