SPEI-based spatial and temporal evaluation of drought in Somalia
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Date
2020-09-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
Somalia is one of the most drought prone countries both in Africa and globally. Drought events usually develop
gradually unnoticed, causing tremendous effects on both agriculture and environment. This study evaluated the
spatio-temporal variations of drought occurrences in Somalia for the period between 1980 and 2015 as quantified
by Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). The intensities, frequencies and trends of
drought occurrences were analyzed using SPEI for the multiple timescales of 1-, 3-, 6-, 12-, and 24-month. The
temporal variations in drought showed decreasing trends in severity and increasing trends in drought duration as
the SPEI timescales increases. The major drought event as identified by SPEI 12 occurred during the period
between May 2011 and January 2013 lasting for a period of 12 months with an intensity of 0.55. Furthermore,
drought count was generally high in the southern parts of Somalia and entire country had suffered droughts
ranging from moderately dry to severely dry conditions. An average drought duration of between 2 and 3 months
was recorded for most (81%) of the locations. The results of this study could be used to support the water resources
management, and to promote the realization of environmental protection and crop production in future.
Description
Keywords
Somalia, Spatio-temporal, Drought, SPEI
Citation
Journal of Arid Environments 184 (2021) 104296