Long-Term, Gridded Standardized Precipitation Index for Hawai‘i

Matthew P. Lucas, Clay Trauernicht, Abby G. Frazier and Tomoaki Miura
Additional contact information
Matthew P. Lucas: Department of Geography and Environment, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Clay Trauernicht: Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Abby G. Frazier: Department of Geography and Environment, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Tomoaki Miura: Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA

Data, 2020, vol. 5, issue 4, 1-9

Abstract: Spatially explicit, wall-to-wall rainfall data provide foundational climatic information but alone are inadequate for characterizing meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, or ecological drought. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is one of the most widely used indicators of drought and defines localized conditions of both drought and excess rainfall based on period-specific (e.g., 1-month, 6-month, 12-month) accumulated precipitation relative to multi-year averages. A 93-year (1920–2012), high-resolution (250 m) gridded dataset of monthly rainfall available for the State of Hawai‘i was used to derive gridded, monthly SPI values for 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, 12-, 24-, 36-, 48-, and 60-month intervals. Gridded SPI data were validated against independent, station-based calculations of SPI provided by the National Weather Service. The gridded SPI product was also compared with the U.S. Drought Monitor during the overlapping period. This SPI product provides several advantages over currently available drought indices for Hawai‘i in that it has statewide coverage over a long historical period at high spatial resolution to capture fine-scale climatic gradients and monitor changes in local drought severity.

Keywords: Standardized Precipitation Index; drought; Hawai‘i; gridded data; climate; rainfall (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C8 C80 C81 C82 C83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5729/5/4/109/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5729/5/4/109/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jdataj:v:5:y:2020:i:4:p:109-:d:451392

Access Statistics for this article

Data is currently edited by Ms. Cecilia Yang

More articles in Data from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().