Hazard Assessment of Drought Using PNPI and GIS in Fars Province, Iran

Abstract

Drought is among the natural disasters that seriously impact the environment and human life. This study aims to explore the spatial pattern of drought using the percent of normal precipitation index (PNPI) in Fars Province, located in the Southern part of Iran. To this end, a drought risk model based on data from 42 stations in Fars province from 1990 to 2019 was evaluated. The model includes three criteria of maximum drought intensity in the period, drought trend, and a maximum number of consecutive dry years. The final drought risk map was obtained with an arithmetic mean of three indicators of intensity, continuity, and trend. The final hazard map and the 3-criteria map were interpolated by the inverse distance weighting (IDW) method and were classified into five risk classes: none, mild, moderate, severe, and very severe. The final vulnerability map shows that moderate hazard areas (5% of the region), which are observed in the Sothern parts of the region, are less widespread than areas under severe hazard (83% of the region), which are observed in almost all parts of the region. According to the final vulnerability map, about 94% of the area of Fars province is under severe and very severe conditions. Overall, this study, regarding its simplicity and considering different dimensions of drought, may be utilised as a basic framework to evaluate drought hazards for other locations worldwide. In this respect, it is necessary to study the multiple sights of this phenomenon for land use planning, resource management, and prevention of water and food crises. Therefore, this model can help users and administrations with executive initiatives.