Application of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) in Greece

Water

Christos A. Karavitis¹  Stavros Alexandris²  Demetrios E. Tsesmelis² 

[1] Water Resources Management Section, Agricultural Engineering Department, Agricultural University of Athens, 75 Iera Odos, GR-11855, Athens, Greece;

关键词: drought index;    Standardized Precipitation Index;    geo-statistical methods;    kriging;    drought contingency planning;   

DOI  :  10.3390/w3030787

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The main premise of the current effort is that the use of a drought index, such as Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), may lead to a more appropriate understanding of drought duration, magnitude and spatial extent in semi-arid areas like Greece. The importance of the Index may be marked in its simplicity and its ability to identify the beginning and end of a drought event. Thus, it may point towards drought contingency planning and through it to drought alert mechanisms. In this context, Greece, as it very often faces the hazardous impacts of droughts, presents an almost ideal case for the SPI application. The present approach examines the SPI drought index application for all of Greece and it is evaluated accordingly by historical precipitation data. Different time series of data from 46 precipitation stations, covering the period 1947–2004, and for time scales of 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months, were used. The computation of the index was achieved by the appropriate usage of a pertinent software tool. Then, spatial representation of the SPI values was carried out with geo-statistical methods using the SURFER 9 software package. The results underline the potential that the SPI usage exhibits in a drought alert and forecasting effort as part of a drought contingency planning posture.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2011 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.