Meteorological Drought Assessment and Prediction in Association with Combination of Atmospheric Circulations and Meteorological Parameters via Rule Based Models

Abstract

The development of data-driven models in conjunction with the advances in technologies regarded as remote sensing in generating recorded data from satellites has guided water management studies towards using these technologies, especially in the regions dealing with drought, like the Lake Urmia basin, Iran. In this basin, the agricultural sector has been exposed to dryness due to a decrease in rainfall and uncontrolled water consumption. In the last decade, many studies have tried to brighten this arena of water knowledge. However, the relationship between meteorological variables and atmospheric circulation with the meteorological drought of Lake Urmia had never been determined. The relationship between meteorological variables and atmospheric circulation with Lake Urmia's meteorological drought has been determined. This study calculated Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) values based on meteorological variables. Then a combination of the meteorological variables and atmospheric circulation values was considered a data mining model input for estimating the droughts. The series of the SPEI values for 3-, 6-, 9-, 12-, 24-, and 48-month time scales were obtained during 1988-2016. In this study, both the M5 Tree model and Associate Rules were used to predict and analyze the meteorological drought at six synoptic stations in the basin, considering both the atmospheric circulations (North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), Mediterranean Oscillation Index of Gibraltar-Israel (Mogi), Mediterranean Oscillation Index of Algiers-Cairo (MOac), Western Mediterranean Oscillation Index (WEMO), Mediterranean, Red, Black, Caspian, and Persian Gulf SSTs) and the meteorological variables (lagged relative humidity, evapotranspiration, average temperature, minimum-maximum temperature, and pressure). The results showed that using a combination of the atmospheric circulation indices and meteorological variables in the models increases the model's accuracy and improves the results in a long-term period. The best result in the study of drought in the Lake Urmia basin is related to SPEI48 (R = 0.85, RMSE = 0.08, MAE = 0.11), and in the association rules, the value of the lifting index of the best rule is 1.32. Although both approaches provided acceptable results, the M5 Tree model had a comparative advantage due to simple and practical linear relationships.

Keywords

• spei
• the urmia lake basin
• m5 tree model
• associate rules
• iran