1College of Agricultural Engineering & Technology, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar Campus, J&K
2Department of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, College of Technology, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263145, Uttarakhand
3Department of Soil and Water Conservation Engineering, College of Technology, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263145, Uttarakhand
*Corresponding author Email id: rohituhf@rediffmail.com
Online Published on 09 January, 2023.
Drought is natural disaster which is characterized by intense and persistent shortage of precipitation. Drought monitoring plays an important role for the freshwater planning and management as well as for prediction of the onset and severity of droughts. The present study deals with the potential of using precipitation-based Standardized Precipitation Index to analyse the temporal pattern of drought in the Gulmarg area of Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir. Monthly precipitation data from 2010 to 2019 for Gulmarg region were used to compute Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) values. The computation of SPI series was carried out for short, intermediate and for long time scales. The moderate drought occurred in 2013 and severe drought occurred in 2018. The intensity of these droughts was found to be moderate during three years from 2011–2013. The SPI values were less than (−)1.0 for these years on 6-month, 9-month and12-month time scales. The 12-month SPI value for these years were (−)1.05, (−)1.34, (−)1.49, respectively. The 12- month SPI values for 2018 was (−)1.56 which indicated severe drought. However, the SPI values suggest moderate dryness in place of acute dryness during the years of severe and extreme drought.
Drought, Drought monitoring, Standardized precipitation index, Temporal pattern
