monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought …...drought indices 3.1. monitoring of...
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GEOMATICS AND GEOSCIENCES
Volume 3, No 3, 2013
© Copyright by the authors - Licensee IPA- Under Creative Commons license 3.0
Research article ISSN 0976 – 4380
Submitted on January 2013 published on March 2013 511
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind
region Bangladesh using standard precipitation index and Markov chain
model Jahangir Alam A.T.M
1, Sayedur Rahman M
2, Saadat A.H.M
1
1- Department of Environmental Sciences, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh
2- Department of Statistics, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh
ABSTRACT
The Barind region of Bangladesh suffers from frequent drought due to poor and delayed
rainfall in pre monsoon and monsoon season. In the present study details analysis of rainfall
data has been carried out for the years 1971-2010. Two well known drought indices, Standard
precipitation index (SPI) has been used to evaluate the precipitation deficit, and Markov
chain model used to quantify the drought in agricultural extent. Details analysis of spatio-
temporal drought dynamics during Pre-Kharif (pre-monsoon) and Kharif (monsoon) have
been carried out through drought indices map generated in a GIS (Geographical Information
System) environment. Analysis and interpretation of these maps evaluate that meteorological
drought is not always correspond to agricultural drought and a chronic agricultural drought
can be occur because of a limited rainfall deficit. The study also identified that there is a
statistically significant temporal correlation between SPI and Markov chain drought indices
but spatial correlation is poor in pre monsoon season. In the Barind region meteorological
drought shows a similar pattern in pre monsoon season but in monsoon season rainfall
deficits shifts its position time to time and in certain pockets it is more frequent. In
agricultural sphere, the Markov chain shows a very chronic pattern during pre-monsoon
season in the entire area but in monsoon it behaves like meteorological drought.
.
Keywords: SPI, Markov chain model, GIS, Barind region, drought.
1. Introduction
Drought is a reoccurring phenomenon in the northwestern part of Bangladesh. Though the
drought has attracted less scientific attraction than flood or cyclone, several authors found
that the impact of drought can be more defenseless than flood and cyclone (e.g. Shahid and
Behrawan, 2008; Shahid, 2008). This is also evident by the statistics that, in the loss of
1978/79 drought was greater than the loss of flood in 1974 (Paul, 1998). Moreover, Rice
production losses in the drought of 1982 were 50 percent more than the losses occur due to
the flood in the same year (Ramsey et al., 2007). Furthermore, in the 1997 drought the
country reduced 1 million tons of food grains of which 0.6 million tons were T. aman
(Ramsey et al., 2007).
On the global level, impact of natural hazards and disasters are staggering. In Bangladesh, the
major natural hazards are also in line with global patterns. In the context of global warming,
most of the climatic models project a decrease in precipitation in dry season and an increase
during monsoon in south Asia (Christensen et al., 2007; Shahid and Behrawan, 2008). This
will cause a cruel combination of more extreme floods and droughts in the region. Due to the
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 512
land use changes within the country and in neighboring country, Bangladesh has already
showed an increased frequency of droughts in recent years (Shahid and Behrawan, 2008).
Concern among scientists has grown on changes of precipitation and frequent occurrence of
droughts in Bangladesh. Therefore, it is necessary to identify different kinds of drought (e.g.
meteorological, Agricultural etc.) for taking proper management plan. Moreover, Drought is
a highly misused word because there is no universally accepted definition of drought. Several
authors defined drought on the basis of meteorological, agricultural, hydrological and socio
economic impact (Darcup et al., 1980; Wilhite and Glantz, 1985; Ramsey et al., 2007) and
also tries to linking up the various types of drought. Meteorological drought is directly related
to the weather parameter rainfall, but agricultural drought in is the consequence of
meteorological drought (Ramsey et al., 2007). Agricultural drought is mainly caused by the
soil water deficiency which is occurred because of meteorological derivation.
Standard precipitation index (SPI) is the most widely used meteorological drought index. The
advantages of SPI are that it can be calculated for a variety of time scales. This versatility
allows SPI to monitor short-term water supplies, such as soil moisture which is important for
agricultural production, and long-term water resources, such as groundwater supplies, stream
flow, and lake and reservoir levels. Soil moisture conditions respond to precipitation
anomalies on a relatively short scale (Mishra and Singh 2010). SPI has been used for
studying different aspects of droughts, for example, forecasting (Mishra et al., 2007),
frequency analysis (Mishra et al., 2009), spatio temporal analysis (Mishra and Singh, 2009;
Shahid, 2008; Loukas and Vasiliades, 2004; Bastini, 2011) and climate impact studies
(Mishra and Singh, 2009; Loukas et al., 2008), monitoring ground water drought (Shahid and
Hazarika, 2010) assessing drought risk (Shahid and Behrawn, 2008). On the other hand
Markov chain model is a widely used agricultural drought index in the Indian sub continent.
It has been used for determining drought proneness (Banik et al., 2002), Analyzing rainfall
drought correlation (Alam et al., 2011) Analyzing agricultural drought (Bimah et al., 2005)
and predicting critical wet and dry spell (Ochola and Kerkides, 2003). Several studies also
cited that the reliability of meteorological persistence can be best described through Markov
chain model of proper order (Rahman, 1999a&b), Moreover, Markov chain model is found to
be promising in simulating the length of the longest dry and wet spells and largest rainfall
amount during monsoon (Sharma, 1996; Biamah, et. al., 2005).
The drought measuring parameters are not linearly related to one another, these drought
indices often have little correlation among themselves (Bhuyian et al., 2006). Therefore it is
quite common that when one drought index identifies drought at a particular place, another
drought index indicates normal condition at the same time and place (Bhuyian et al., 2006).
Monitoring drought is challenging because of the large spatial and temporal variability of
drought events. Monitoring techniques need to be adapted to capture the time location and
sector specific characteristics of drought. Moreover, use of a particular specific index has
often been demonstrated to be inadequate for completely representing this complex
phenomenon (Heim, 2002; Steinemann et al., 2005; Quiring, 2009). In the present study,
detailed analysis of seasonal drought dynamics has been carried out to identify
spatiotemporal drought patterns in meteorological and agricultural spheres. Time-series
analysis of drought and spatial maps of the Barind region have been generated in a
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) using SPI and Markov chain model drought indices.
Since aquifer-recharge, agricultural activities, and ecological changes are controlled by
rainfall, the present analysis has been focused on drought during the monsoon and the non-
monsoon periods. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) has been used to monitor
meteorological drought and Markov chain model to monitor and analyzing agricultural
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 513
drought. Finally, relative drought dynamics in meteorological and agricultural sphere of the
Barind region have been compared.
2. Climatic condition of Barind region
Barind Tract is the largest Pleistocene physiographic unit of the Bengal Basin which covers
an area of about 7,770 sq km. Three distinct seasons can be recognized in area from climatic
point of view: (1) the dry winter season from December to February, (2) the pre-monsoon hot
summer season from March to May, and (3) the rainy monsoon season which lasts from June
to October (Shahid, 2011). Climatically, the region is characterized by high fluctuating
rainfall and the ratio of dry to rainy months is found to be highest in Bangladesh. It is
observed that annual average rainfall vary between 1,400 and 1900 mm and the seasonal
distribution of rainfall shows that more than 90 % rainfall occurs during May to October
(Shahid, 2011). Although the whole region has long cool winter, the maximum number of
days with temperature above 40°C is observed in summer (Rahman, 1999a).
Geologically Barind tract belongs to an old alluvial formation which is usually composed of
massive argillaceous beds of pale reddish brown color that often turns yellowish on
weathering. Lime nodules and pisolitic ferruginous concretions occur throughout the soil.
Locally the soils are rich in lime. Soils are deficient in nitrogen and phosphorus
(Moslehuddin et al., 2008). The daily rainfall data of 12 rainfall stations were available from
the year 1971 to 2008 in Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB). Location of the
rainfall stations are given in figure 1.
Figure 1: Location of the rainfall stations in the study area
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 514
3. Drought Indices
3.1. Monitoring of meteorological drought
McKee et al. (1993, 1995) proposed Standardized Precipitation Index to assess anomalous
and extreme precipitation. Since precipitation data are mostly skewed, in order to compute
SPI, precipitation data are normalized using gamma function. SPI is based on the probability
of precipitation for any desired time scale. The SPI is computed by dividing the difference
between the normalised seasonal precipitation and its long-term seasonal mean by the
standard deviation. Thus
Where, Xij is the seasonal precipitation at the ith rain gauge station and jth observation, Xim
the long-term seasonal mean and s is its standard deviation. Five classes of SPI as shown in
Table 1 are used in the present study.
3.2 Monitoring of agricultural drought
Several authors have found that the sequences in daily rainfall occurrences can be described
by a simple Markov chain model. Additional evidence to indicate the feasibility of using a
Markov chain model has been presented by Rahman (1999 a&b), Banik et al. (2002),
Borkatulla (2007) and Alam et al., (2011). The theory of Markov chain is described below:
Let X0,X1,X2,……………,Xn, be random variables distributed identically and taking only
two values, namely 0 and 1, with probability one, i.e.,
= wet isnth week theif 1
dry isnth week theif 0nX
Firstly, it may be assume that,
P ( Xn+1 = xn+1Xn = xn,Xn-1 = xn-1,………,X0 = x0) = P( Xn+1 = xn+1Xn = xn)
where x0,x1,………….,xn+1∈{ 0,1 }.
In other words, it is assumed that probability of wetness of any week depends only on
whether the previous week was wet or dry. Given the event on previous week, the probability
of wetness is assumed independent of further preceding weeks. So, the stochastic process
{Xn, n = 0, 1, 2…….} is a Markov chain.
Considering the transition matrix as;
1110
0100
PP
PP
where Pij = P(X1 = jX0 = i) i,j = 0,1. Note P00+P01 = 1 and P10+P11 = 1
P11 gives the probability of a week to be wet given that previous week was wet also. When
P11 is large, the chance of wet weeks is also large. But only a small value of P11 may not
indicate high drought proneness. In this case, large value of P01 implies a large number of
short wet spells which can prevent occurrence of drought.
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 515
Hence, an index of drought proneness may be defined as
DI = P11×P01 (2)
This index of drought proneness is bounded by zero and one. Higher the value of DI, lower
will be the degree of drought proneness.
Table 1: Index of Drought Proneness
Drought Classes SPI Markov Chain Model
Extreme Drought <-2.00 >0.125
Severe Drought <-1.5 >0.185
Moderate Drought <-1.00 >0.235
Mild Drought <-.00 >0.310
No drought >0.00 >1.000
3.3 Mapping of meteorological and agricultural drought
For mapping of spatial extent of meteorological and agricultural droughts from point data, a
kriging interpolation method is used. In this study, Inverse distance weighting (IDW) of
Geostatistics tools has been used for mapping the spatial extent of meteorological and
agricultural droughts because it is a quick deterministic interpolator that is accurate.
Moreover there is a very diminutive decision to make regarding model parameter.
Furthermore, Geostatistics is based on the theory of regionalized variables are increasingly
preferred because it allows the capitalization of spatial correlation between neighboring
observations to predict attribute values at not sampled locations (Goovaerts, 2000).
4. Result and Discussion
The use of two or more drought indices provide and understanding of drought characteristics
and probability of re-occurrences of drought easily (Mpelasoka et al., 2008). It discussed the
critical stages and can also able to identify real drought events. In the present study both SPI
and Markov chain model have been used to observe drought event during the period 1971-
2010. For meteorological drought rainfall from March to May considered as Pre-monsoon
season or and June to October has considered as monsoon (Shahid, 2011). On the other hand
Markov chain model is a threshold based model. In the present study weekly 20 mm rainfall
considered as threshold value (Alam et al., 2012) and occurrence of agricultural drought has
been calculated by considering 13 and 21 standard weeks for Pre-monsoon and monsoon
seasons respectively.
4.1 Monitoring Meteorological drought
Meteorological drought is a very common phenomenon in the north-western part of
Bangladesh (Shahid, 2008; Shaid and Hazarika, 2010). This statement is also supported by
the present study. Chronic to mild all classes of meteorological drought occurred during the
period 1971-2010 in Pre-monsoon season in discrete pocket of the study area. The time series
of average SPI value in both Pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons are given in figure 2.
The figure 2 evident that in both Pre-Kharif and Kharif seasons the area is affected by
different magnitude of drought in about 19 times. But the different parts of the area are
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 516
affected in different years. The figure also suggests that the frequency of drought has
increased in 1990s and recent decays compare to 1970s and 1980s. And it is clear that the
study area is affected by drought almost ones in two years. The major drought events in Pre-
monsoon season (during 1971-2010) are given figure 3. It is evident that a north-eastern
pocket of the study area is more vulnerable to meteorological drought during Pre-monsoon
season. Moreover, in all the years the category of drought occurrence showed similar patterns
within a few exceptions. The incidences of meteorological drought also partially support the
findings of Shahid (2008). Where he found that the major four meteorological droughts in
pre-monsoon was in 1982, 1989, 1992 and 1995 in the western part of Bangladesh.
In case of monsoon period, meteorological drought occurred in different pockets in different
years. Unlike pre-monsoon it does not show any similar pattern. Major ten monsoon drought
events have been given in the figure 4. Chronic meteorological drought affects the area in the
year 1982, 1994 and 2010. Among these drought events the drought of 2010 was most
devastating. In addition to this severe drought occur almost all the year cited in the figure 4.
However, moderate to mild drought occurred almost every year in some discrete pocket of
the study area during 1971-2010.
Figure 2: Time series of average meteorological drought index (a) Pre-monsoon season (b)
monsoon season
The drought event of monsoon season also partially supported the result of Shahid (2008) in
which he identified 1982, 1989, 1992 and 1995 as the most devastating drought events in the
western part of Bangladesh. During the 2006-2010 just within a span five years monsoon
drought affect the Barind region four times. Shahid (2010) found that the monsoon rainfall in
the northwestern part of Bangladesh has increased significantly during the time period 1958-
2007. So, this drought event is contradicted with the findings of Shahid (2010). Other results
disagree with the findings of Shahid (2008, 2010) as he stated that there is no significant
correlation between rainfall and meteorological drought but all the definition of
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 517
meteorological drought stated that lack of precipitation is the principle cause of
meteorological drought (Ramsey et al., 2007).
1972 1975 1979 1982 1994
1996 1999 2004 2007 2008
Figure 3: Major meteorological drought events in Pre-monsoon season
1972 1975 1982 1989 1994
1996 2006 2008 2009 2010
Figure 4: Major meteorological drought events in monsoon season
4.2 Monitoring Agricultural drought
The time series of agricultural drought occurrence is given in the figure 5. Figure 5(a)
explained that during Pre- monsoon growing season almost all the year affected by chronic to
moderate agricultural drought. And the occurrence of agricultural drought during Kharif
growing season is quite lower. During 1971-2010 around 5 to 6 time’s monsoon agricultural
drought affect the area. But drought occurs almost every year in some discrete pockets of
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 518
Barind region. This is may be because of most of the rainfall in this region occurs during the
month June to October and during November to May the region enjoys a very little rainfall
(Rahman, 2000).
(a) (b)
Figure 5: Time series of average agricultural drought index (a) Pre-monsoon season (b)
Monsoon season
1972 1975 1979 1982 1989 1992
1994 1995 1999 2005 2007 2008
Figure 6: Major agricultural drought events in Pre-moonsoon season
1982 1994 1996 1997 1999 2010
Figure 7: Major agricultural drought events in monsoon season
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 519
During pre- monsoon season chronic drought occur almost every year in any parts of the
study area. From the figure 6 it is evident that during 1971-2010 there were at least 5 years
(1972, 1979, 1995, 2005 and 2008) when the entire study area has been affected by the
chronic drought. This significance of chronic drought resulted from very low rainfall (almost
zero) and the high temperature which influence the moisture holding capacity of the soil.
This chronic agricultural drought during Pre-Kharif growing season increase the groundwater
irrigation demand in Boro rice field which shares almost 70% of the total rice production of
Bangladesh. But in case of Barind region lack of rain or chronic drought compel the farmers
to not to seed their Boro rice and around 85% of the rain remain fallow during this season in
Barind region (Alam et al., 2011; Sadaat el al., 2009).
During Kharif growing season six major droughts year were identified throughout time
period 1971-2010. And four droughts years were identified during the last decay of twenty
century (figure 7). The agricultural drought of 1994 also supported the statement of Shahid
(2008) and Shahid and Behrawan (2008) where they stated in the drought of 1994–1995 led
to a decrease in rice and wheat production of 3.5910×6 ton. Moreover, Dey et al., (2011)
marked 1994 as the driest year in the contemporary periods which lead to devastating impact
on the northwestern part of Bangladesh. The drought events of 1997 support the declaration
of Ramsey et al., (2007) affirming that the drought of 1997 has lead to short fall of1 million
tons of food grains of which 0.6 million tons were T. aman. Along with this agricultural
droughts occur in some discrete pockets of the Barind region almost every year. Ramsey et
al., (2007) confirmed that around 2.32 million hectare of T.aman rice crops damages due to
agricultural drought every year. On the other hand Alam et al., (2011) and Rahman (2000)
indicate this amount is 0.574 to 1.748 millions of hectares.
4.3 Relative drought dynamics
The coefficients of correlation between meteorological drought index and agricultural
drought index in twelve rainfalls station in the studied time frame (1971-2010) for both Pre-
monsoon and monsoon seasons are also studied. The result from Pearson correlation indicates
that all of the rainfall stations, the meteorological and agricultural drought indices are
statistically significant except in two stations namely Nithpur and Badalgachi. However the
degree of correlation varied among different rainfall stations (r=0.472 to 0.813). SPI and
Markov chain drought index demonstrated weakest correlation especially in wet season
(r=0.139 to 0.801). This may be attributed to the fact the degree of agricultural drought not
only related to occurrence of rainfall but other conditions such as soil moisture holding
capacity, crop water requirement may also affected this. Moreover, Occurrence of rainfall in
time is very important for proper grown up of crops.
The correlation between same drought indices with seasonal rainfall is also observed. The
meteorological drought index indicates that in both dry and wet seasons it is significantly
correlated with rainfall (for all the stations the value of r =1.000). But for agricultural drought
index the degree of correlation vary from station to stations. And during dry seasons the
strength of correlation is more significant than wet season. In dry season, degree of Pearson
correlation vary from r=0.472 to r=0.413 but in wet season the degree of Pearson correlation
vary from r=0.137 to r=0.801). It might be the cause that degree of rainfall variation is much
higher in wet season. And this variability of rainfall negatively impacted the other component
of agriculture that is closely related to the agricultural production. Moreover the occurrence
of rainfall in this region is very low during dry season
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 520
1975 1990 1998 2003
1975 1990 1998 2003
Figure 8: Significant spatial correlation of meteorological and agricultural drought in Pre-
monsoon season
Figure 9: Significant spatial correlation of meteorological and agricultural drought in
monsoon season
Monitoring meteorological and agricultural drought dynamics in Barind region Bangladesh using standard
precipitation index and Markov chain model
Jahangir Alam A.T.M
International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 521
SPI maps indicate that meteorological drought in the Barind region appears randomly in the
monsoon season. Irregular drought pattern in this region is due to inconsistent rainfall
distribution (Figure 8) during monsoon. Meteorological drought scenario in the region
changed continuously in monsoon season depending upon rainfall amount and spatial
distribution. But during the pre-monsoon season the spatial distribution of meteorological
drought showed a very similar pattern. The drought severity is found be higher in the north-
eastern part of the study area (Figure 8). Agricultural drought neither follows any spatio-
temporal pattern like meteorological drought. The meteorological and agricultural drought
indices show a very poor spatial correlation. During the dry season among 40 years only four
years shows spatially significant correlation (figure 8). The years are 1975, 1990, 1998 and
2003. But the degree of correlation is also very significantly. The figure 8 evident that lower
severity of meteorological drought can generate higher severity of agricultural drought. For
example, in the year of 1975 a discrete pocket of northeastern Barind affected by chronic
agricultural drought but almost entire part is affected by agricultural drought. Moreover, in
the year 2003 few discrete pocket of southern part of the study area affected by mild
meteorological drought but in the same time the entire southern part was affected by chronic
agricultural drought. SPI and Markov chain maps indicate that a deficient rainfall as per the
SPI index does not always correspond to agricultural drought. On the contrary, drought may
appear in the agricultural spheres in spite of normal rainfall according to SPI. From the figure
9 it is clear that the severity of agricultural and meteorological drought also varied in the
same time period. For example in the year 1982 the southern Barind affected by chronic to
moderate meteorological drought but agriculturally severe to moderate drought has been
affected the area. Figure 8 and 9 also evident that the lack of spatial correspondence of SPI
and Markov chain is more prominent during the non-monsoon season.
5. Conclusion
The SPI maps indicate that meteorological drought appears in Barind region in a random
fashion in monsoon season but in pre monsoon it exhibits a similar pattern. However the
seasonal meteorological drought has a short life span. The Markov chain maps reveal that
during Pre-Kharif growing season the agricultural sphere of Barind region is seriously
affected by chronic drought almost every year. But in Kharif season it demonstrated random
fashion in some discrete pockets. The magnitude and frequency of agricultural drought vary
from years to years in different locations. The study also identified that there is a very strong
statistically significant correlation between SPI and Markov chain drought indices but they
are poorly spatially correlated. In addition to this speed of drought development and drought
duration vary widely. Therefore identification, classification and analysis of drought
dynamics are influenced by monitoring parameter and monitoring methods. SPI monitor
precipitation deficit the primary cause of drought development but a very little impact of
agricultural drought have been observed through precipitation deficit. Despite a negative SPI
a region can be free from drought or vice versa. Thus meteorological drought does not always
correspond to agricultural drought.
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precipitation index and Markov chain model
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International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences
Volume 3 Issue 3, 2013 522
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