![Sample our Engineering & Technology journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5933/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Engineering-Tech.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The present study aims to explore the potential of multiscalar meteorological drought indices in detecting soil moisture drought events. The standardized soil moisture index (SSMI), standardized precipitation index (SPI), standardized evapotranspiration index (SEI), standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and multivariate moisture anomaly index (MMAI) were computed using long-term (1980–2015) MERRA-2 soil moisture, precipitation and/or evapotranspiration data products. The performances of the meteorological indices were evaluated based on a zone-wise and spatial correlation approach along with failure rate (FR) and false alarm rate (FAR) values. The spatial correlation was highest in SEI, followed by MMAI, in comparison to SPI and SPEI. FR and FAR values indicated that SEI is the best index for detecting soil moisture drought events, whereas MMAI outperformed the other indices in representing combined drought events, i.e. meteorological or/and soil moisture droughts. The outcome of the study may be useful in retrieving information about soil moisture drought over a region using only meteorological parameters.
Editor A. Fiori ; Associate editor D. Bressiani
Editor A. Fiori ; Associate editor D. Bressiani
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to Dr Santanu Chowdhury, Dr Uday Raj and Dr D. Dutta for their continuous support and encouragement during the investigation. We also acknowledge the support received from BITS, Mesra and RRSC-East staffs during manuscript preparation. We duly acknowledge NASA GMAO for providing long-term MERRA-2 data. The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.