Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD Student in Irrigation and Drainage, Department of Water Science and Engineering, University of Birjand, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Department of Water Science and Engineering, and Member of the Drought and Climate Change Research Group, University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran.

3 Agricultural Jihad Organization of South Khorasan Province

Abstract

Drought is a recurring natural climatic phenomenon that typically occurs in all parts of the world. This study was conducted to investigate the intensity and duration of drought in the two counties of Ferdows and Tabas in South Khorasan Province. In this study, daily precipitation time series data for the selected stations were collected over a 25-year statistical period (1990–2014), and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was analyzed for the two studied stations using two GCM models, IPSL and MPI, from CMIP6. The SSP2-4.5 scenario was used to estimate SPI for the period 2030–2059, and the BCSD downscaling method was applied to predict meteorological data. The results indicate that the overall SPI trend for both models show significant fluctuations between positive and negative values, posing challenges for water resource management in the two counties. However, the IPSL model predicts drought with greater intensity, highlighting the need to develop water management plans based on various climate scenarios for the studied counties. According to the study’s findings, an increase in the average intensity and duration of drought in the future period compared to the baseline indicates an intensification of drought. Nevertheless, the number of normal periods in both the baseline and future periods was higher than other periods at the stations studied.

Keywords

Main Subjects

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