The Drought Phenomenon in the Iberian Peninsula: Events and Impacts—from Current Conditions to Future Projections

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Climatology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (2 August 2021) | Viewed by 16015

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Guest Editor
Applied Physics Department, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Interests: climate variability; climate change; seasonal prediction; decadal prediction; climate change projections; downscaling techniques; regional climate models; convection-permitting models; streamflow variability; drought
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Drought is one of the greatest natural hazards. It presents a complex nature, given the large number of variables involved, from its origin after a deficit in precipitation, which, combined with high evapotranspiration, can lead to a deficit in soil moisture, until manifesting itself as a hydrological drought. Therefore, drought can affect many sectors and systems, such as agriculture, water resources, and natural ecosystems. The Iberian Peninsula, considered to be a region especially vulnerable to the drought phenomenon, has experienced, in recent decades, an increase of drought severity, due mainly to atmospheric evaporative demand. Along with this, some studies indicate that droughts are projected to intensify in the future in southern Europe.

This Special Issue offers an opportunity to publish papers devoted to the advance in the understanding of the drought physical phenomenon in the Iberian Peninsula, from the assessment and characterization of historical droughts to the analysis of how changes in the hydrological cycle could modify precipitation patterns and alter key aspects in atmosphere–land coupling, modifying the frequency and intensity of drought episodes in the future. Papers on observed and projected changes during the 21th century for meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural droughts are welcome, from the study of different variables (precipitation, evapotranspiration, streamflow, soil moisture, etc.), at different spatial and temporal scales, and from different methodological approaches (drought indices, hydrological modeling, downscaling methods, etc.). Papers addressing drought impacts on topics such as hydropower, ecosystems, or crop damage, among others, are also of interest.

Dr. Sonia Raquel Gámiz-Fortis
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Iberian Peninsula
  • Meteorological drought
  • Hydrological drought
  • Agricultural drought
  • Climate change
  • Water resources
  • Drought indices
  • Precipitation
  • Evapotranspiration
  • Streamflow
  • Soil moisture
  • Downscaling
  • Regional models
  • Hydrological models

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 8651 KiB  
Article
Assessing Future Drought Conditions over the Iberian Peninsula: The Impact of Using Different Periods to Compute the SPEI
by Matilde García-Valdecasas Ojeda, Emilio Romero-Jiménez, Juan José Rosa-Cánovas, Patricio Yeste, Yolanda Castro-Díez, María Jesús Esteban-Parra, Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano and Sonia R. Gámiz-Fortis
Atmosphere 2021, 12(8), 980; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12080980 - 29 Jul 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3546
Abstract
Future drought-hazard assessments using standardized indices depend on the period used to calibrate the probability distributions. This appears to be particularly important in a changing climate with significant trends in drought-related variables. This study explores the effect of using different approaches to project [...] Read more.
Future drought-hazard assessments using standardized indices depend on the period used to calibrate the probability distributions. This appears to be particularly important in a changing climate with significant trends in drought-related variables. This study explores the effect of using different approaches to project droughts, with a focus on changes in drought characteristics (frequency, duration, time spent in drought, and spatial extent), estimated with a calibration period covering recent past and future conditions (self-calibrated indices), and another one that only applies recent-past records (relative indices). The analysis focused on the Iberian Peninsula (IP), a hot-spot region where climate projections indicate significant changes by the end of this century. To do this, a EURO-CORDEX multi-model ensemble under RCP8.5 was used to calculate the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) at both 3- and 12-month timescales. The results suggest that projections of drought characteristics strongly depend on the period used to calibrate the SPEI, particularly at a 12-month timescale. Overall, differences were larger for the near future when relative indices indicated more severe droughts. For the distant future, changes were more similar, although self-calibrated indices revealed more frequent and longer-lasting droughts and the relative ones a drought worsening associated with extremely prolonged drought events. Full article
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17 pages, 2944 KiB  
Article
Agricultural Drought Trends on the Iberian Peninsula: An Analysis Using Modeled and Reanalysis Soil Moisture Products
by Laura Almendra-Martín, José Martínez-Fernández, Ángel González-Zamora, Pilar Benito-Verdugo and Carlos Miguel Herrero-Jiménez
Atmosphere 2021, 12(2), 236; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12020236 - 9 Feb 2021
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 5001
Abstract
Drought has a great impact on agriculture and food security, and climate change is increasing its frequency and exacerbating its intensity. Given the enormous interest in studying the recent drought evolution, in this work, agricultural drought trends over the past four decades on [...] Read more.
Drought has a great impact on agriculture and food security, and climate change is increasing its frequency and exacerbating its intensity. Given the enormous interest in studying the recent drought evolution, in this work, agricultural drought trends over the past four decades on the Iberian Peninsula (IP) were analyzed. A trend analysis was performed with soil moisture based on the study of the evolution of anomalies and the Soil Water Deficit Index (SWDI). Two soil moisture databases (Lisflood and ERA5-Land) were used and the analysis was performed at daily and weekly temporal scales. Climate characteristics and soil properties were also considered to detect whether a trend spatial pattern could be identified. The results have shown a clear predominance of negative trends. A marked temporal pattern with negative trends was obtained over a 10-month period that coincided with the growing season of most of the crops on the IP, while a positive trend was observed over 2 months. No differences were found based on the climatic zone or soil characteristics. However, negative trends were observed to decrease as the clay content increased. These results can provide useful information for better water management and agriculture of the IP and other Mediterranean areas. Full article
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22 pages, 14620 KiB  
Article
Flash Drought Response to Precipitation and Atmospheric Evaporative Demand in Spain
by Iván Noguera, Fernando Domínguez-Castro and Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano
Atmosphere 2021, 12(2), 165; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12020165 - 27 Jan 2021
Cited by 45 | Viewed by 6257
Abstract
Flash drought is the result of strong precipitation deficits and/or anomalous increases in atmospheric evaporative demand (AED), which triggers a rapid decline in soil moisture and stresses vegetation over short periods of time. However, little is known about the role of precipitation and [...] Read more.
Flash drought is the result of strong precipitation deficits and/or anomalous increases in atmospheric evaporative demand (AED), which triggers a rapid decline in soil moisture and stresses vegetation over short periods of time. However, little is known about the role of precipitation and AED in the development of flash droughts. For this paper, we compared the standardized precipitation index (SPI) based on precipitation, the evaporative demand drought index (EDDI) based on AED, and the standardized evaporation precipitation index (SPEI) based on the differences between precipitation and AED as flash drought indicators for mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands for 1961–2018. The results show large differences in the spatial and temporal patterns of flash droughts between indices. In general, there was a high degree of consistency between the flash drought patterns identified by the SPI and SPEI, with the exception of southern Spain in the summer. The EDDI showed notable spatial and temporal differences from the SPI in winter and summer, while it exhibited great coherence with the SPEI in summer. We also examined the sensitivity of the SPEI to AED in each month of the year to explain its contribution to the possible development of flash droughts. Our findings showed that precipitation is the main driver of flash droughts in Spain, although AED can play a key role in the development of these during periods of low precipitation, especially in the driest areas and in summer. Full article
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