Different drought types and the spatial variability in their hazard, impact, and propagation characteristics

Abstract

Droughts often have a severe impact on the environment, society, and the economy. The variables and scales that are relevant to understand the impact of drought motivated this study, which compared hazard and propagation characteristics, as well as impacts, of major droughts between 1990 and 2019 in southwestern Germany. We bring together high-resolution datasets of air temperature, precipitation, soil moisture simulations, and streamflow and groundwater level observations, as well as text-based information on drought impacts. Various drought characteristics were derived from the hydrometeorological and drought impact time series and compared across variables and spatial scales. Results revealed different drought types sharing similar hazard and impact characteristics. The most severe drought type identified is an intense multi-seasonal drought type peaking in summer, i.e., the events in 2003, 2015, and 2018. This drought type appeared in all domains of the hydrological cycle and coincided with high air temperatures, causing a high number of and variability in drought impacts. The regional average drought signals of this drought type exhibit typical drought propagation characteristics such as a time lag between meteorological and hydrological drought, whereas propagation characteristics of local drought signals are variable in space. This spatial variability in drought hazard increased when droughts propagated through the hydrological cycle, causing distinct differences among variables, as well as regional average and local drought information. Accordingly, single variable or regional average drought information is not sufficient to fully explain the variety of drought impacts that occurred, supporting the conclusion that in regions as diverse as the case study presented here, large-scale drought monitoring needs to be complemented by local drought information to assess the multifaceted impact of drought.