Past and future drought trends, duration, and frequency in the semi-arid Urmia Lake Basin under a changing climate

verfasst von

Behnam Mirgol, Meisam Nazari, Hadi Ramezani Etedali, Kazem Zamanian

Abstract

Although the Urmia Lake has undergone remarkable drought conditions within the past decades mainly due to climate change, drought studies covering the entire Urmia Lake Basin and all drought aspects are lacking. The present study investigated the spatial and temporal drought conditions in the Urmia Lake Basin for the past (1988–2017) and future (2021–2050 and 2051–2080) periods using five general circulation models (GCMs) under the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scenarios RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, and RCP 8.5. The standardized precipitation index (SPI) and standardized precipitation and evapotranspiration index (SPEI) were compared. The SPEI predicted more drought events than the SPI, and it seemed to be a more suitable drought index than the SPI for the basin. In general, the future periods would encounter less drought conditions in terms of significant drought trends and duration than the observed period under all scenarios, but the frequency of quarterly severe drought events in the future periods would be higher than in the observed period. Furthermore, the stations Urmia (western bank) and Tabriz and Maragheh (eastern banks) would face the highest frequency of different types of quarterly drought events in the future periods compared with the observed period. The predicted high frequencies of drought events for the future periods can intensify the current low water level situation of the Urmia Lake, which seriously threatens all types of ecosystems in the basin. Therefore, serious actions need to be taken into account for efficient ecosystem and water resources management in the basin.

Externe Organisation(en)

Imam Khomeini International University
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Meteorological applications

Band

28

ISSN

1350-4827

Publikationsdatum

01.07.2021

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Atmosphärenwissenschaften

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 13 – Klimaschutzmaßnahmen

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1002/met.2009 (Zugang: Offen)