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This paper studies the past and future annual droughts in the five agro-ecological zones (AEZs) of Cameroon. Station data and model outputs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 were used to compute areal datasets for each AEZ. Six statistical metrics and compromise programming method were used to evaluate and rank the models, respectively. The top three models were used to build multi-model ensemble (MME) and deduce bias-corrected MME data. They were then used to compute the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) used as drought indicator. As a result, the performance of the models depends on the AEZ and decreases with the increase in drought intensity. The 1980s was the most marked by severe-extreme droughts and a significant increase in drought intensity was observed in the entire domain during the past period, the years 1974, 1985 and 1988 showing the highest drought intensities. The MME tends to overestimate and underestimate the frequencies and the magnitude of these events, respectively. Bias-corrected MME data improve the results in most cases. As for the period 2071–2099, all the AEZs are likely to experience severe-extreme droughts which are expected to be more frequent before 2083 in the North (AEZs 1 and 2) and after this year in the South (AEZs 3, 4 and 5). It is also expected a slight increasing trend of the mean spatial SPIs showing a slight decrease in drought intensity. The RCPs 8.5 and 2.6 project the lowest and the highest decrease in drought intensity, respectively, while the RCP4.5 shows an average decrease. This study highlights future periods and areas at potential risk of severe-extreme droughts and can guide decision-makers in mitigation and adaptation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the next 20 years, there will be an extensive investment in transport infrastructure. Although the cut and embankment slopes seem to have the same appearance, they have different responses to climate variations. Understanding their characteristics and performance is necessary to design a safer and more sustainable slope infrastructure. This paper provides a thorough examination of the seasonal performance of cut slopes and embankments. Furthermore, this study suggests an introduction to the impacts of climate change, amplifying seasonal shrinkage–swelling and progressive failure of slope construction under extreme drought and precipitation. Volumetric water content and pore water pressure fluctuations due to seasonal variation were analysed and compared from both the cut slope and the embankment. Moreover, stress path and slope deformation were also investigated in this study to understand the behaviour of the cut slope and the embankment. The results suggest that the cut slope retains more pore water pressure during the wet season due to its lower permeability than an embankment with respect to the construction history. However, pore water pressure and displacement in the cut slope tend to be increased due to the consolidation process after excavation, which requires more time to reach equilibrium. In addition, greater displacement in the cut slope can increase the possibility of delayed failure in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the classification and prediction capabilities of decision tree (DT), genetic programming (GP), and gradient boosting decision tree (GBT) techniques for one-month ahead prediction of standardized precipitation index in Ankara province and standardized precipitation evaporation index in central Antalya region. The evolved models were developed based on multi-station prediction scenarios in which observed (reanalyzed) data from nearby stations (grid points) were used to predict drought conditions in a target location. To tackle the rare occurrence of extreme dry/wet conditions, the drought series at the target location was categorized into three classes of wet, normal, and dry events. The new models were trained and validated using the first 70% and last 30% of the datasets, respectively. The results demonstrated the promising performance of GBT for meteorological drought classification. It provides better performance than DT and GP in Ankara; however, GP predictions for Antalya were more accurate in the testing period. The results also exhibited that the proposed GP model with a scaled sigmoid function at root can effortlessly classify and predict the number of dry, normal, and wet events in both case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

West Africa plays key roles in global climate and shows one of the strongest variations in hydro-climatic conditions. As it turns out, the region appears to be underrepresented in the existing compendium of Earth science and hydrology-focused journal papers when it comes to significant discussion on terrestrial hydrology and freshwater science. This prominent gap is largely precipitated by increasing number of constraints that include lack of considerable and robust investments in gauge measurements for meteorological and hydrological applications, poor funding of research institutions and other disincentives, among other factors. In this manuscript, the challenges and problems in large-scale terrestrial hydrology-focused investigation in West Africa are reviewed. Using a dossier of some recent contributions in the field of remote sensing hydrology, this review also highlights some of the progress in terrestrial hydrology and the opportunities that exist for hydro-geodetic research in West Africa that leverage on sustained investments in satellite geodetic missions. It is noted that West Africa is still a pristine environment for hydrology-focused research and can benefit from recent advancements in sophisticated space agency programs such as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, which undoubtedly has revolutionized terrestrial hydrology research around the world for nearly two decades. Given the poor density of gauge stations and limited ground observations, hydrological research in West Africa is expected to benefit more from independent space observations and multi-resolution data. This is because the lack of sufficient in-situ data for the parameterizations and adequate initialization of outputs from hydrological models and reanalysis data for hydrological applications results in poor representation of the West African land surface and hydrological state variables. To further improve our contemporary understanding of West Africa's terrestrial hydrology, the continued evaluation/validation of these observations and space-borne measurements is advocated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research was to identify major drought events on the Spanish mainland between 1961 and 2014 by means of two drought indices, and analyze the spatial propagation of drought conditions. The indices applied were the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the standardized evaporation precipitation index (SPEI). The first was calculated as standardized anomalies of precipitation at various temporal intervals, while the second examined the climatic balance normalized at monthly scale, incorporating the relationship between precipitation and the atmospheric water demand. The daily meteorological data from Spanish Meteorological Archives (AEMet) were used in performing the analyses. Within the framework of the DESEMON project, original data were converted into a high spatial resolution grid (1.1 km2) following exhaustive quality control. Values of both indices were calculated on a weekly scale and different timescales (12, 24 and 36 months). The results show that during the first half of the study period, the SPI usually returned a higher identification of drought areas, while the reverse was true from the 1990s, suggesting that the effect from atmospheric evaporative demand could have increased. The temporal propagation from 12- to 24-month and 36-month timescales analyzed in the paper seems to be a far from straightforward phenomenon that does not follow a simple rule of time lag, because events at different temporal scales can overlap in time and space. Spatially, the propagation of drought events affecting more than 25% of the total land indicates the existence of various spatial gradients of drought propagation, mostly east-west or west-east, but also north-south have been found. No generalized episodes were found with a radial pattern, i.e., from inland to the coast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the variability of drought conditions in Poland in the years 1956-2015 with the use of the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). The study provides a new insight into the phenomenon of the past expansion of the drought-affected area as well as evidence of drying trends in a spatiotemporal context. 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month SPEI were considered, representing drought conditions relevant to agriculture and hydrology. The analysis demonstrates that the spatial extent of droughts shows a broad variability. The annual mean of the percentage of the area under drought has witnessed an increase for all three SPEI timescales. This also pertains to the mean area affected by drought over the growing season (April-September). A decreasing trend in the SPEI values indicates an increase in the severity of droughts over the 60-year period in question in an area extending from the south-west to the central part of Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occurrence of drought is one of the characteristic features of Polish climate. Drought usually lasts for many weeks and covers considerable area causing economic and social losses. Due to the influence which drought has on environment, economy and society, more and more research and implementation works are devoted to issues concerning its occurrence, risk assessment, monitoring, and forecasting. Literature indicates that hydrological droughts are most often associated with low flow periods on rivers. The paper presents analyses of hydrological drought periods on the basis of hydrological drought index (HDI) for selected Nysa Kłodzka study basin (SW part of Poland). Analyses were carried out in relation to the Maximum Credible Hydrological Drought (MCHD). In addition, attempts were taken to assess the hydrological drought based on atmospheric drought focused on application in ungauged basins in terms of hydrological monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]