Two Centuries of Drought History in the Center of Chihuahua, Mexico

Abstract

Droughts are a climatic phenomenon with local, regional, and large-scale repercussions. Historical knowledge of droughts generated by modeled data allows the development of more accurate climate reconstructions to propose better approaches for the management of hydric resources. The objective of this research was to evaluate the association of precipitation and temperature with data from the NLDAS-002 to develop a reconstruction of droughts in the center of Chihuahua, Mexico using the SPEI from tree rings. We also identified the influence of ocean–atmospheric phenomena on the reconstructed drought index. The best association among chronologies was obtained with the earlywood band and accumulated seasonal precipitation from November of the previous year to June of the current year (r = 0.82, p p p p p p < 0.05). The historical reconstruction of hydroclimatology in the center of Chihuahua is important for planning a long-term assessment and for the management of water resources shared by Mexico and the United States.

Keywords

• precipitation
• drought index
• tree rings
• temperature