Uncertainty in Drought Identification Due to Data Choices, and the Value of Triangulation
1
IRI THESys, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
2
Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
3
Earth and Life Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Place Pasteur 3, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Alban Kuriqi and Luis Garrote
Water 2021, 13(24), 3611; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243611
Received: 1 November 2021
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Revised: 4 December 2021
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Accepted: 6 December 2021
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Published: 16 December 2021
(This article belongs to the Topic Water Management in the Era of Climatic Change)
Droughts are complex and gradually evolving conditions of extreme water deficits which can compromise livelihoods and ecological integrity, especially in fragile arid and semi-arid regions that depend on rainfed farming, such as Kitui West in south-eastern Kenya. Against the background of low ground-station density, 10 gridded rainfall products and four gridded temperature products were used to generate an ensemble of 40 calculations of the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to assess uncertainties in the onset, duration, and magnitude of past droughts. These uncertainties were driven more by variations between the rainfall products than variations between the temperature products. Remaining ambiguities in drought occurrence could be resolved by complementing the quantitative analysis with ground-based information from key informants engaged in disaster relief, effectively formulating an ensemble approach to SPEI-based drought identification to aid decision making. The reported trend towards drier conditions in Eastern Africa was confirmed for Kitui West by the majority of data products, whereby the rainfall effect on those increasingly dry conditions was subtler than just annual and seasonal declines and greater annual variation of rainfall, which requires further investigation. Nevertheless, the effects of increasing droughts are already felt on the ground and warrant decisive action.
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Keywords:
droughts; gridded data; SPEI; semi-arid; Eastern Africa
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Doi: 10.20944/preprints202111.0137.v1
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MDPI and ACS Style
Borona, P.; Busch, F.; Krueger, T.; Rufin, P. Uncertainty in Drought Identification Due to Data Choices, and the Value of Triangulation. Water 2021, 13, 3611. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243611
AMA Style
Borona P, Busch F, Krueger T, Rufin P. Uncertainty in Drought Identification Due to Data Choices, and the Value of Triangulation. Water. 2021; 13(24):3611. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243611
Chicago/Turabian StyleBorona, Pius, Friedrich Busch, Tobias Krueger, and Philippe Rufin. 2021. "Uncertainty in Drought Identification Due to Data Choices, and the Value of Triangulation" Water 13, no. 24: 3611. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243611
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