TY - JOUR
T1 - Effectiveness of drought indices in identifying impacts on major crops across the USA
AU - Peña-Gallardo, Marina
AU - Vicente-Serrano, Sergio M.
AU - Domínguez-Castro, Fernando
AU - Quiring, Steven
AU - Svoboda, Mark
AU - Beguería, Santiago
AU - Hannaford, Jamie
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements. This work was supported by the research project I-Link1001 (Validation of climate drought indices for multi-sectorial applications in North America and Europe under a global warming scenario) financed by CSIC, PCIN-2015-220, CGL2014-52135-C03-01, Red de variabili-dad y cambio climático RECLIM (CGL2014-517221-REDT) financed by the Spanish Commission of Science and Technology and FEDER, and IMDROFLOOD financed by the Water Works 2014 co-funded call of the European Commission. M.P.-G. received a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
Publisher Copyright:
© Inter-Research 2018.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - In North America, the occurrence of extreme drought events has increased significantly in number and severity over the last decades. Past droughts have contributed to lower agricultural productivity in major farming and ranching areas across the US. We evaluated the relationship between drought indices and crop yields across the US for the period 1961−2014. In order to assess the correlations with yields from the major cash crops in the country, we calculated several drought indices commonly used to monitor drought conditions, including 4 Palmer-based and 3 multiscalar indices (Standardized Precipitation Index, Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, Standardized Precipitation Drought Index). The 3 multiscalar drought indices were aggregated at 1 to 12 mo timescales. Besides the quantification of the similarities or differences between these drought indices using Pearson correlation coefficients, we identified spatial patterns illustrating this relationship. The results demonstrate that the flexible multiscalar indices can identify drought impacts on different types of crops for a wide range of time periods. The differences in spatial and temporal distribution of the correlations depend on the crop and timescale analyzed, but can also be found within the same type of crop. The moisture conditions during summer and shorter timescales (1 to 3 mo) turn out to be a determining factor for barley, corn, cotton and soybean yields. Therefore, the use of multiscalar drought indices based on both precipitation and the atmospheric evaporative demand (SPEI and SPDI) seems to be a prudent recommendation.
AB - In North America, the occurrence of extreme drought events has increased significantly in number and severity over the last decades. Past droughts have contributed to lower agricultural productivity in major farming and ranching areas across the US. We evaluated the relationship between drought indices and crop yields across the US for the period 1961−2014. In order to assess the correlations with yields from the major cash crops in the country, we calculated several drought indices commonly used to monitor drought conditions, including 4 Palmer-based and 3 multiscalar indices (Standardized Precipitation Index, Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, Standardized Precipitation Drought Index). The 3 multiscalar drought indices were aggregated at 1 to 12 mo timescales. Besides the quantification of the similarities or differences between these drought indices using Pearson correlation coefficients, we identified spatial patterns illustrating this relationship. The results demonstrate that the flexible multiscalar indices can identify drought impacts on different types of crops for a wide range of time periods. The differences in spatial and temporal distribution of the correlations depend on the crop and timescale analyzed, but can also be found within the same type of crop. The moisture conditions during summer and shorter timescales (1 to 3 mo) turn out to be a determining factor for barley, corn, cotton and soybean yields. Therefore, the use of multiscalar drought indices based on both precipitation and the atmospheric evaporative demand (SPEI and SPDI) seems to be a prudent recommendation.
KW - Crop yields
KW - Drought
KW - Palmer drought indices
KW - Standardized Precipitation Drought Index
KW - Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index
KW - Standardized Precipitation Index
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U2 - 10.3354/cr01519
DO - 10.3354/cr01519
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85052936491
SN - 0936-577X
VL - 75
SP - 221
EP - 240
JO - Climate Research
JF - Climate Research
IS - 3
ER -