Hydrological Drought Monitoring Based on the Correct Calculation of Standardized Flow Index in the Karkheh Basin

Abstract

Drought is one of the most destructive and important climate phenomena, whose effect is usually more important on a regional scale. The importance of this phenomenon is more evident in the Karkheh basin due to its size and important role in providing the country's water resources. We aim to monitor hydrologic drought using the accurate calculation of standardizes streamflow index (SSI) in one month time scale based on fitting frequency distribution to monthly data and goodness of fit test for each station in Karkheh basin for 30 years (1986-2016). The findings of this research showed that the generalized Pareto distribution was selected as the most appropriate distribution in most months, unlike the previous research that fitted and used only the Gama distribution on the data. The time series of the standard flow index indicated the occurrence of super-drought in 2008 to 2015 years. Also, the significant impact of the construction of hydraulic structures upstream of the basin on the average flow rate was observed in some stations. The results of direct and annual monitoring of the drought situation showed that the Karkheh basin has experienced hydrological drought in recent years, and the drought trend is increasing.

Keywords

• statistical distributions
• goodness of fit tests
• time series
• occurrence probability
• super-drought