Articles | Volume 13, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-331-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-331-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
A multi-scale daily SPEI dataset for drought characterization at observation stations over mainland China from 1961 to 2018
Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing of Soil Erosion and
Disaster Protection/College of Environment and Resource, Fuzhou University,
Fuzhou, 350116, China
Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory and University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20740, USA
Jingyu Zeng
Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing of Soil Erosion and
Disaster Protection/College of Environment and Resource, Fuzhou University,
Fuzhou, 350116, China
Junyu Qi
Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland,
College Park, 5825 University Research Ct, College Park, MD 20740, USA
Xuesong Zhang
Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland,
College Park, 5825 University Research Ct, College Park, MD 20740, USA
Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory and University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20740, USA
Yue Zeng
Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing of Soil Erosion and
Disaster Protection/College of Environment and Resource, Fuzhou University,
Fuzhou, 350116, China
Wei Shui
Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing of Soil Erosion and
Disaster Protection/College of Environment and Resource, Fuzhou University,
Fuzhou, 350116, China
Zhanghua Xu
Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing of Soil Erosion and
Disaster Protection/College of Environment and Resource, Fuzhou University,
Fuzhou, 350116, China
Rongrong Zhang
Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing of Soil Erosion and
Disaster Protection/College of Environment and Resource, Fuzhou University,
Fuzhou, 350116, China
Xiaoping Wu
Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing of Soil Erosion and
Disaster Protection/College of Environment and Resource, Fuzhou University,
Fuzhou, 350116, China
Jiang Cong
School of Urban Planning and Design, Peking University, Shenzhen,
Guangdong, 518055, China
Related authors
Xiaofan Yang, Yu Chen, Han Qiu, Virgílio A. Bento, Hongquan Song, Wei Shui, Jingyu Zeng, and Qianfeng Wang
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2560, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2560, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The future of global evaporation under climate change remains uncertain. The current ET model relies primarily on high emission CMIP5 scenarios and does not fully represent the enhanced vegetation-climate interaction in CMIP6 low emission scenarios. Updated models using output of four CMIP6 GCMs under four SSPs show that ET projections will become increasingly dependent on emissions scenarios.
Qianfeng Wang, Rongrong Zhang, Yanping Qu, Jingyu Zeng, Xiaoping Wu, Xiaozhen Zhou, Binyu Ren, Xiaohan Li, and Duhui Zhou
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-105, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-105, 2021
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
Short summary
The standardized precision index (SPI), which is commonly used for drought monitoring and assessment, is limited by its temporal resolution and cannot identify flash drought in less than one month. Therefore, we developed a new daily SPI dataset. The results show that the drought events identified by our SPI dataset were consistent with the historical drought events, which is effective and reliable. At the same time, the dataset will be open to the public free of charge.
Xiaofan Yang, Yu Chen, Han Qiu, Virgílio A. Bento, Hongquan Song, Wei Shui, Jingyu Zeng, and Qianfeng Wang
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2560, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2560, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The future of global evaporation under climate change remains uncertain. The current ET model relies primarily on high emission CMIP5 scenarios and does not fully represent the enhanced vegetation-climate interaction in CMIP6 low emission scenarios. Updated models using output of four CMIP6 GCMs under four SSPs show that ET projections will become increasingly dependent on emissions scenarios.
Sangchul Lee, Dongho Kim, Gregory W. McCarty, Martha Anderson, Feng Gao, Fangni Lei, Glenn E. Moglen, Xuesong Zhang, Haw Yen, Junyu Qi, Wade Crow, In-Young Yeo, and Liang Sun
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-187, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-187, 2022
Manuscript not accepted for further review
Short summary
Short summary
Watershed modeling is important to protect water resources. However, errors are involved in watershed modeling. To reduce errors, remotely sensed evapotranspiration data are widely used. However, the use of remotely sensed evapotranspiration data still includes errors. This study applied two remotely sensed data (evapotranspiration and leaf area index) into watershed modeling to reduce errors. The results showed advancement of watershed modeling by two remotely sensed data.
Qianfeng Wang, Rongrong Zhang, Yanping Qu, Jingyu Zeng, Xiaoping Wu, Xiaozhen Zhou, Binyu Ren, Xiaohan Li, and Duhui Zhou
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-105, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-105, 2021
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
Short summary
The standardized precision index (SPI), which is commonly used for drought monitoring and assessment, is limited by its temporal resolution and cannot identify flash drought in less than one month. Therefore, we developed a new daily SPI dataset. The results show that the drought events identified by our SPI dataset were consistent with the historical drought events, which is effective and reliable. At the same time, the dataset will be open to the public free of charge.
Cited articles
Abramowitz, M. and Stegun, I.: Handbook of Mathematical Functions,
with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables, New York,
NY, Dover, 1046 pp., 1965.
Agrawala, S., Barlow, M., Cullen, H., and Lyon, B.: The drought and
humanitarian crisis in Central and Southwest Asia: a climate perspective,
IRI special report N. 01-11, International Research Institute for Climate
Prediction, Palisades, 24, https://doi.org/10.7916/D8NZ8FHQ, 2001.
Barella-Ortiz, A. and Quintana-Seguí, P.: Evaluation of drought representation and propagation in regional climate model simulations across Spain, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 5111–5131, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-5111-2019, 2019.
Boroneant, C., Ionita, M., Brunet, M., and Rimbu, N.: CLIVAR-SPAIN
contributions: seasonal drought variability over the Iberian Peninsula and
its relationship to global sea surface temperature and large scale
atmospheric circulation, WCRP OSC: Climate Research in Service to Society, Denver, USA, available at:
https://www.wcrp-climate.org/conference2011/posters/C4/C4_Boroneant_TH197A_0.pdf (last access: 9 February 2021),
24–28 October 2011.
Bussi, G. and Whitehead, P. G.: Impacts of droughts on low flows and water
quality near power stations, Hydrol. Sci. J., 65, 898–913,
2020.
Carlson, T. N., Gillies, R. R., and Perry, E. M.: A method to make use of
thermal infrared temperature and NDVI measurements to infer surface soil
water content and fractional vegetation cover, Remote Sens. Rev., 9,
161–173, 1994.
Chen, C., Wang, E., and Yu, Q.: Modelling the effects of climate variability
and water management on crop water productivity and water balance in the
North China Plain, Agr. Water Manage., 97, 1175–1184, 2010.
Dai, A., Trenberth, K. E., and Qian, T.: A global dataset of Palmer Drought
Severity Index for 1870–2002: Relationship with soil moisture and effects
of surface warming, J. Hydrometeorol., 5, 1117–1130, 2004.
Doesken, N. J., McKee, T. B., and Garen, D. : Drought monitoring in the western United States using a Surface Water Supply Index, 7th Conf. AppI. Climatology, Proc., American Meteorological Society, Boston, Mass., 10–13, 1991.
Eslamian, S., Ostad-Ali-Askari, K., Singh, V. P., Dalezios, N. R., Ghane,
M., Yihdego, Y., and Matouq, M.: A review of drought indices, Int. J. Constr.
Res. Civ. Eng., 3, 48–66, 2017.
Feng, K. and Su, X.: Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Drought in the Heihe
River Basin Based on the Extreme-Point Symmetric Mode Decomposition Method,
Int. J. Dis. Risk Sci., 10, 591–603, 2019.
Fuchs, B., Svoboda, M., Nothwehr, J., Poulsen, C., Sorensen, W., and
Guttman, N.: A new national drought risk Atlas for the US from the National
Drought Mitigation Center, National Drought Mitigation Center, Univ. of
Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA, 2012.
Garrick, D. E., Hall, J. W., Dobson, A., Damania, R., Grafton, R. Q., Hope,
R., Hepburn, C., Bark, R., Boltz, F., and De Stefano, L.: Valuing water for
sustainable development, Science, 358, 1003–1005, 2017.
Gevaert, A. I., Veldkamp, T. I. E., and Ward, P. J.: The effect of climate type on timescales of drought propagation in an ensemble of global hydrological models, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 4649–4665, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4649-2018, 2018.
Grismer, M., Orang, M., Snyder, R., and Matyac, R.: Pan evaporation to
reference evapotranspiration conversion methods, J. Irrig.
Drain. E., 128, 180–184, 2002.
Han, X., Wu, J., Zhou, H., Liu, L., Yang, J., Shen, Q., and Wu, J.:
Intensification of historical drought over China based on a multi-model
drought index, Int. J. Climatol., 40, 5407–5419, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6527, 2020.
Hargreaves, G. H. and Samani, Z. A.: Estimating potential
evapotranspiration, J. Irrig. Drain. E., 108, 225–230, 1982.
Homdee, T., Pongput, K., and Kanae, S.: A comparative performance analysis
of three standardized climatic drought indices in the Chi River basin,
Thailand, Agr. Nat. Resour., 50, 211–219, 2016.
Jevšenak, J.: Daily climate data reveal stronger climate-growth
relationships for an extended European tree-ring network, Quaternary Sci.
Rev., 221, 105868, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.105868, 2019.
Jia, Y., Zhang, B., and Ma, B.: Daily SPEI reveals long-term change in
drought characteristics in Southwest China, Ch. Geogr. Sci.,
28, 680–693, 2018.
Kassaye, A. Y., Shao, G., Wang, X., and Wu, S.: Quantification of drought
severity change in Ethiopia during 1952–2017, Environ. Dev.
Sustain., 1–26, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00805-y, 2020.
Kendall, M. G.: Rank correlation methods, Charles Griffin,
London, p. 202, 1948.
Kogan, F.: World droughts in the new millennium from AVHRR-based vegetation
health indices, T. AGU, 83, 557–563, 2002.
Lai, C., Zhong, R., Wang, Z., Wu, X., Chen, X., Wang, P., and Lian, Y.:
Monitoring hydrological drought using long-term satellite-based
precipitation data, Sci. Total Environ., 649, 1198–1208, 2019.
Li, Y., Yuan, X., Zhang, H., Wang, R., Wang, C., Meng, X., Zhang, Z., Wang,
S., Yang, Y., and Han, B.: Mechanisms and early warning of drought
disasters: Experimental drought meteorology research over China, B.
Am. Meteorol. Soc., 100, 673–687, 2019.
Lu, J., Sun, G., McNulty, S. G., and Amatya, D. M.: A Comparison of Six
Potential Evapotranspiration Methods for Regional Use in the Southeastern
United States 1, J. Am. Water Resour. As., 41, 621–633, 2005.
Makkink, G. F.: Testing the Penman formula by means of lysimeters, J. Inst. Water Eng., 11, 277–288, 1957.
Mallya, G., Mishra, V., Niyogi, D., Tripathi, S., and Govindaraju, R. S.:
Trends and variability of droughts over the Indian monsoon region, Weather Climate Extremes, 12, 43–68, 2016.
Mann, H.: Non-Parametric Tests against Trend, Econmetrica, 13, 245–259, 1945
Martí, P., Zarzo, M., Vanderlinden, K., and Girona, J.: Parametric
expressions for the adjusted Hargreaves coefficient in Eastern Spain,
J. Hydrol., 529, 1713–1724, 2015.
McGuire, J. K. and Palmer, W. C.: The 1957 drought in the eastern United
States, Mon. Weather Rev., 85, 305–314, 1957.
McKee, T. B., Doesken, N. J., and Kleist, J.: The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales
Eighth Conference on Applied Climatology, American Meteorological Society, Boston, Eighth Conf. Appl. Climatol., available at:
https://climate.colostate.edu/pdfs/relationshipofdroughtfrequency.pdf (last access: 9 February 2021), 1993.
Mendicino, G. and Senatore, A.: Regionalization of the Hargreaves
coefficient for the assessment of distributed reference evapotranspiration
in Southern Italy, J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 139, 349–362, 2013.
Men-Xin, W. and Hou-Quan, L.: A modified vegetation water supply index
(MVWSI) and its application in drought monitoring over Sichuan and
Chongqing, China, J. Integr. Agr., 15, 2132–2141, 2016.
Mishra, A. K. and Singh, V. P.: A review of drought concepts, J.
Hydrol., 391, 202–216, 2010.
Monish, N. and Rehana, S.: Suitability of distributions for standard
precipitation and evapotranspiration index over meteorologically homogeneous
zones of India, J. Earth Syst. Sci., 129, 2132–2141, 2020.
Morton, F. I.: Operational estimates of areal evapotranspiration and their
significance to the science and practice of hydrology, J. Hydrol.,
66, 1–76, 1983.
Pendergrass, A. G., Meehl, G. A., Pulwarty, R., Hobbins, M., Hoell, A.,
AghaKouchak, A., Bonfils, C. J., Gallant, A. J., Hoerling, M., and Hoffmann,
D.: Flash droughts present a new challenge for subseasonal-to-seasonal
prediction, Nat. Clim. Change, 10, 191–199, 2020.
Penman, H. L.: Natural evaporation from open water, bare soil and grass,
Proc. R. Soc. Lon. Ser.-A, 193, 120–145, 1948.
Potop, V., Boroneanţ, C., Možný, M., Štěpánek, P.,
and Skalák, P.: Observed spatiotemporal characteristics of drought on
various time scales over the Czech Republic, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 115, 563–581, 2014.
Priestley, C. H. B. and Taylor, R.: On the assessment of surface heat flux
and evaporation using large-scale parameters, Mon. Weather Rev., 100,
81–92, 1972.
Salvador, C., Nieto, R., Linares, C., Diaz, J., and Gimeno, L.: Effects on
daily mortality of droughts in Galicia (NW Spain) from 1983 to 2013, Sci.
Total Environ., 662, 121–133, 2019.
Sen, P. K.: Estimates of the regression coefficient based on Kendall's tau,
J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 63, 1379–1389, 1968.
Sheffield, J., Andreadis, K., Wood, E. F., and Lettenmaier, D.: Global and
continental drought in the second half of the twentieth century:
severity–area–duration analysis and temporal variability of large-scale
events, J. Climate, 22, 1962–1981, 2009.
Sohn, S. J., Ahn, J. B., and Tam, C. Y.: Six month–lead downscaling
prediction of winter to spring drought in South Korea based on a multimodel
ensemble, Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 579–583, 2013.
Stagge, J. H., Tallaksen, L. M., Gudmundsson, L., Van Loon, A. F., and
Stahl, K.: Candidate distributions for climatological drought indices (SPI
and SPEI), Int. J. Climatol., 35, 4027–4040, 2015.
Thomas, A.: Spatial and temporal characteristics of potential
evapotranspiration trends over China, Int. J. Climatol., 20, 381–396, 2000.
Thornthwaite, C.: Report of the Committee on Transpiration and Evaporation
1943-44, T. AGU, 25, 683–693, 1944.
Tirivarombo, S., Osupile, D., and Eliasson, P.: Drought monitoring and
analysis: standardised precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and
standardised precipitation index (SPI), Phys. Chem. Earth, 106, 1–10, 2018.
Trenberth, K. E., Dai, A., Van Der Schrier, G., Jones, P. D., Barichivich,
J., Briffa, K. R., and Sheffield, J.: Global warming and changes in drought,
Nat. Clim. Change, 4, 17–22, 2014.
Van der Schrier, G., Jones, P., and Briffa, K.: The sensitivity of the PDSI
to the Thornthwaite and Penman-Monteith parameterizations for potential
evapotranspiration, J. Geophys. Res.- Atmos., 116, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JD015001, 2011.
Vicente-Serrano, S. M., Beguería, S., and López-Moreno, J. I.: A
multiscalar drought index sensitive to global warming: the standardized
precipitation evapotranspiration index, J. Climate, 23, 1696–1718,
2010.
Vicente-Serrano, S. M., López-Moreno, J. I., Beguería, S.,
Lorenzo-Lacruz, J., Azorin-Molina, C., and Morán-Tejeda, E.: Accurate
computation of a streamflow drought index, J. Hydrol.
Eng. 17, 318–332, 2012.
Wan, Z., Wang, P., and Li, X.: Using MODIS land surface temperature and
normalized difference vegetation index products for monitoring drought in
the southern Great Plains, USA, Int. J. Remote Sens., 25,
61–72, 2004.
Wang, Q., Wu, J., Lei, T., He, B., Wu, Z., Liu, M., Mo, X., Geng, G., Li,
X., and Zhou, H.: Temporal-spatial characteristics of severe drought events
and their impact on agriculture on a global scale, Quatern. Int.,
349, 10–21, 2014.
Wang, Q., Shi, P., Lei, T., Geng, G., Liu, J., Mo, X., Li, X., Zhou, H., and
Wu, J.: The alleviating trend of drought in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain of
China based on the daily SPEI, Int. J. Climatol., 35, 3760–3769, 2015.
Wang, Q., Wu, J., Li, X., Zhou, H., Yang, J., Geng, G., An, X., Liu, L., and
Tang, Z.: A comprehensively quantitative method of evaluating the impact of
drought on crop yield using daily multi-scale SPEI and crop growth process
model, Int. J. Biometeorol., 61, 685–699, 2017.
Wang, Q., Tang, J., Zeng, J., Qu, Y., Zhang, Q., Shui, W.,Wang, W., Yi, L., and Leng, S.: Spatial-temporal evolution of vegetation
evapotranspiration in Hebei Province, China, J. Integr.
Agr., 17, 2107–2117, 2018.
Wang, Q., Qi, J., Li, J., Cole, J., Waldhoff, S. T., and Zhang, X.: Nitrate
loading projection is sensitive to freeze-thaw cycle representation, Water
Res., 186, 116355, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116355, 2020a.
Wang, Q., Qi, J., Wu, H., Zeng, Y., Shui, W., Zeng, J., and Zhang, X.:
Freeze-Thaw cycle representation alters response of watershed hydrology to
future climate change, Catena, 195, 104767, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2020.104767, 2020b.
Wang, Q., Zeng J., Qi J., Zhang, X., Zeng, Y., Shui, W., Xu. Z., Zhang, R., and Wu, X.: muliti-scale daily SPEI dataset over the Mainland China from 1961–2018 (version June 2020), dataset, Figshare,
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12568280, 2020c.
Wang, Y., Zhao, W., Zhang, Q., and Yao, Y.-B.: Characteristics of drought
vulnerability for maize in the eastern part of Northwest China, Sci.
Rep.-UK, 9, 1–9, 2019.
Wilhite, D. A. and Glantz, M. H.: Understanding: the drought phenomenon: the
role of definitions, Water Int., 10, 111–120, 1985.
Yang, P., Xia, J., Zhang, Y., Zhan, C., and Qiao, Y.: Comprehensive
assessment of drought risk in the arid region of Northwest China based on
the global palmer drought severity index gridded data, Sci. Total
Environ., 627, 951–962, 2018.
Yevjevich, V. M.: Objective approach to definitions and investigations of
continental hydrologic droughts, Hydrology papers (Colorado State
University), no. 23, https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1694(69)90110-3, 1967.
Yu, M., Li, Q., Hayes, M. J., Svoboda, M. D., and Heim, R. R.: Are droughts
becoming more frequent or severe in China based on the standardized
precipitation evapotranspiration index: 1951–2010?, Int. J. Climatol., 34, 545–558, 2014.
Zambrano, F., Vrieling, A., Nelson, A., Meroni, M., and Tadesse, T.:
Prediction of drought-induced reduction of agricultural productivity in
Chile from MODIS, rainfall estimates, and climate oscillation indices,
Remote Sens. Environ., 219, 15–30, 2018.
Zargar, A., Sadiq, R., Naser, B., and Khan, F. I.: A review of drought
indices, Environ. Rev., 19, 333–349, 2011.
Short summary
(1) The SPEI has been widely used to monitor and assess drought characteristics.
(2) A multi-scale daily SPEI dataset was developed across mainland China from 1961 to 2018.
(3) The daily SPEI dataset can identify the start and end days of a drought event.
(4) The daily SPEI dataset developed is free, open, and publicly available from this study.
(1) The SPEI has been widely used to monitor and assess drought characteristics.
(2) A...
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint