Trend analysis of drought in Bundelkhand region of India

Drought is a recurrent natural disaster in Bundelkhand region but little attention has been so far paid to prepare in advance to combat the effect of drought in terms of spatial and temporal drought assessment and its trend. This study presents a methodology for spatial and temporal assessment of drought in each of the 13 districts included in Bundelkhand region. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) methods were used to identify meteorological drought and trends of drought in terms of SPI were calculated by modified Mann Kendal's test with Sen's slope estimator in different time steps for the duration of 1990–2019 for all 13 districts. In most of districts, it was found severe to extreme drought condition in the years 1991, 1993, 2000 and 2015. In these years, dry spell periods were also long. In 1-month scale of SPI, there was significant increasing trend 0.0005 per year and 0.0008 per year in Damoh and Lalitpur districts, respectively during 1990 to 2019. In case of 3-months scale of SPI, there was significant increasing trend (0.0013 per year) in Datia district whereas in 6-months scale of SPI, there was significant increasing trend 0.0014 per year and 0.0011 per year in Datia and in Lalitpur districts, respectively. There was significant increasing trend 0.0019 per year in Datia, and Lalitpur and 0.0013 per year in Sagar districts in 12-months scale of SPI. Drought analysis and trend analysis can provide a tool to diagnose the impacts on food production associated with drought and for early warning of crop yield by predicting the yield at an early stage of the crop growth.