Development of Drought Severity-Duration-Frequency Curves in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

One of the many ways in preparing for drought is to carry out a drought risk assessment by characterisation of the frequency, severity and duration of a drought. Therefore, the current study aimed at the development of severity-duration-frequency (SDF) curves to provide a comprehensive characterisation of the droughts for 10 selected stations in Victoria, Australia. The development of the frequency curves is based on the precipitation deficits which were computed based on the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI). Instead of using SPI values, the precipitation thresholds were used to compute the severity of the droughts. This would be very helpful in delivering information that can be understood easily by ordinary users and decision-makers. The SDF curves were developed using the partial duration series (PDS) technique. Log Pearson Type III distribution was chosen and fitted well to the precipitation deficits for different durations of drought. Overall, SDF curves were successfully derived for 10 stations in Victoria and can provide useful information for medium/long term planning, such as in planning irrigation supply and developing drought relief policies.

Key Words:

• Log Pearson Type III distribution
• partial duration series (PDS)
• severity-duration-frequency (SDF)
• standardised precipitation index (SPI)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

S N Rahmat

Dr Siti Nazahiyah is a lecturer at the Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Malaysia. She pursued her doctoral studies at the RMIT University, Melbourne, and completed her PhD in Civil Engineering (Water Resources) in 2015. Her research involved study of drought management and forecasting. She received a BEng degree in Civil Engineering and a MEng in Water Resources from the University of Technology, Malaysia (UTM). Siti has published a number of papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings.

N Jayasuriya

Dr Nira Jayasuirya is a senior lecturer at the School Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at the RMIT University in Melbourne. She holds a Civil Engineering degree from University of Sri Lanka in Peradeniya, MEng in the field of Soil and Water Engineering from Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, and a PhD in Hydrology from University of Melbourne. Nira has more than 30 years of teaching and research experience in the fields of hydrology, hydraulics, water quality and water resources. She has completed a number of externally-funded research programs and published many peer-reviewed papers. She has also worked as a practicing engineer in the water industry in Sri Lanka and in Thailand.

M Bhuiyan

Dr Muhammed Bhuiyan has more than 20 years of teaching and research experience in water resources engineering at different universities, which include RMIT University, Melbourne (current); Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET), Dhaka; Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia; University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada; and University of Petroleum & Minerals (UPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He holds BSc and MSc Engineering from BUET and a PhD from UPM in Civil and Environmental Engineering fields. He has supervised more than 25 postgraduate students, and published over 50 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings.