What is the difference between meteorological agricultural and hydrological droughts

Many efforts have been put into developing drought indicators jointly using ground-based, satellite-based, and model simulated data. One of the earliest examples of such a composite, or hybrid, approach is found in the operational US Drought Monitor USDM [ 37 ], which combines several inputs consisting of modelled data, satellite vegetation health indicators, climate-based indices such as the SPI , impacts, and local expert input from the field.

Unlike a flood, a drought does not have an obvious start or end. While monitoring has been done for decades, forecasting drought is still in its infancy [ 42 ]. As meteorological drought is dominated by precipitation processes, its forecast is fundamentally an issue of medium-to-long range weather forecasting.

Hydrological and agricultural droughts are driven by meteorological droughts; therefore their forecasts also heavily depend on weather forecasting. It is common to use atmospheric model outputs to drive hydrological models for making seasonal hydrological drought forecasts [ 43 , 44 ] or estimating future droughts [ 45 ].

In knowing that the drought propagation process is complicated, especially when considering human managed interventions such as reservoir operations, diversions, water consumption, and agricultural activities, many more factors should be involved in hydrological and agricultural drought forecasting.

Another major challenge for drought forecasting is due to the fact that forecasts are often unreliable on the seasonal timescale and lack specificity, reducing their usefulness for agriculture and other sectors [ 36 ].

In this special issue, a collection of six papers were chosen that cover topics addressing regional drought changes, drought assessment methods, and impacts of human activities and climate change on drought evolution. Huang et al. Vido et al. Furthermore, the precipitation shadow of the mountains influences the risk of drought occurrence.

Zhao et al. Yu et al. Liu et al. Yuan et al. Significant progress has been made in the last decade centering around a better understanding of the mechanisms of drought propagation. Future advances are required in order to address the following aspects: 1 Develop more long-term and reliable series of drought data, and quantitatively assess data uncertainty whether the data are observed through ground networks or satellites or especially through modelled or simulated approaches, so as to avoid any misinterpretation about changes in drought characteristics.

Wen Wang Maurits W. Ertsen Mark D. Svoboda Mohsin Hafeez. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article of the Year Award: Outstanding research contributions of , as selected by our Chief Editors. Read the winning articles. Journal overview. Special Issues. Wen Wang , 1 Maurits W. Ertsen, 2 Mark D. Received 04 Jan Accepted 11 Jan Published 23 Mar Drought in the World and China Drought is a hazard that occurs everywhere in the world both in dry and in wet areas. The Roles of Human Intervention in Drought Propagation Human interventions in the water cycle are about manipulating water flows by groups of users for different reasons and adapting water availability in time and space and changing the hydrological patterns in their surrounding landscape.

Highlights in the Special Issue In this special issue, a collection of six papers were chosen that cover topics addressing regional drought changes, drought assessment methods, and impacts of human activities and climate change on drought evolution. Future Works on Drought Propagation Mechanisms Significant progress has been made in the last decade centering around a better understanding of the mechanisms of drought propagation.

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Lei, and D. Cheng, X. Zuo, F. Zhong, L. Socioeconomic definitions of drought associate the supply and demand of some economic good with elements of meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural drought. It differs from the aforementioned types of drought because its occurrence depends on the time and space processes of supply and demand to identify or classify droughts. The supply of many economic goods, such as water, forage, food grains, fish, and hydroelectric power, depends on weather.

Because of the natural variability of climate, water supply is ample in some years but unable to meet human and environmental needs in other years. Socioeconomic drought occurs when the demand for an economic good exceeds supply as a result of a weather-related shortfall in water supply.

For example, in Uruguay in —89, drought resulted in significantly reduced hydroelectric power production because power plants were dependent on streamflow rather than storage for power generation.

In most instances, the demand for economic goods is increasing as a result of increasing population and per capita consumption. Supply may also increase because of improved production efficiency, technology, or the construction of reservoirs that increase surface water storage capacity.

If both supply and demand are increasing, the critical factor is the relative rate of change. Is demand increasing more rapidly than supply? If so, vulnerability and the incidence of drought may increase in the future as supply and demand trends converge. Water International 10 3 — A more recent effort focuses on ecological drought , defined as "a prolonged and widespread deficit in naturally available water supplies — including changes in natural and managed hydrology — that create multiple stresses across ecosystems.

More Contact Info Web Policy. Drought Center creates tool that could help detect emerging impacts by tracking news. Drought Monitor now searchable by tribal area. Meteorological Drought.