Drought indices as drought predictors in the south-central USA

Robert V. Rohli (), Nazla Bushra, Nina S. N. Lam, Lei Zou, Volodymyr Mihunov, Margaret A. Reams and Jennifer E. Argote
Additional contact information
Robert V. Rohli: Louisiana State University
Nazla Bushra: Louisiana State University
Nina S. N. Lam: Louisiana State University
Lei Zou: Louisiana State University
Volodymyr Mihunov: Louisiana State University
Margaret A. Reams: Louisiana State University
Jennifer E. Argote: Louisiana State University

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2016, vol. 83, issue 3, No 11, 1567-1582

Abstract: Abstract Drought is among the most insidious types of natural disasters and can have devastating economic and human health impacts. This research analyzes the relationship between two readily accessible drought indices—the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index (PHDI)—and the damage incurred by such droughts in terms of monetary loss, over the 1975–2010 time period on monthly basis, for five states in the south-central USA. Because drought damage in the Spatial Hazards Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS™) is reported at the county level, statistical downscaling techniques were used to estimate the county-level PDSI and PHDI. Correlation analysis using the downscaled indices suggests that although relatively few county–months contain drought damage reports, drought indices can be useful predictors of drought damage at the monthly temporal scale extended to 12 months and at the county-level spatial scale. The varying time lags between occurrence of drought and reporting of damage, perhaps due to varying resilience to drought intensity and duration by crop types across space, along with differing irrigation schedules and adaptation measures of the community to drought over space and time, may contribute to weakened correlations. These results present a reminder of the complexities of anticipating the effects of drought, but they contribute to the effort to improve our ability to mitigate the effects of incipient drought.

Keywords: Drought damage; Palmer Drought Severity Index; Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index; Statistical downscaling; SHELDUS™; South-central USA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-016-2376-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:nathaz:v:83:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s11069-016-2376-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-016-2376-z

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().