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This study characterizes the climatology of drought events over the mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands using high‐resolution (1.21 km2) meteorological data from 1961 to 2014. The climatology of drought was assessed based on two widely‐recognized drought indices: the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation‐Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), considering four different timescales (1‐, 3‐, 6‐ and 12‐months). Drought events were simply defined as sequences of months with negative values of the indices. We analysed the spatial and temporal variability of the frequency, duration and magnitude of the drought events. In general, the frequency of drought events is higher in the northern than in the southern regions. Conversely, the average duration and magnitude of the drought events in central and southwestern regions duplicate those recorded in northern areas. Although drought characteristics exhibit a general north–south gradient irrespective of the drought timescale and the drought index analysed, we found important spatial differences in terms of both drought duration and severity. As opposed to the SPI, the SPEI shows, on average, higher drought durations and magnitudes at 1‐, 3‐ and 6‐months timescales. Albeit of the absence of significant temporal changes in drought duration or magnitude at the regional scale, a nonsignificant tendency toward higher drought duration and magnitude is observed over the majority of Spain. Our result provide valuable guidance to stakeholders and decision‐makers on detecting, monitoring and adapting to drought impacts at local, regional and national scale in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the probability of occurrence of drought is important for improving current drought assessment, management and mitigation measures, and strategies across Spain. This study employed two well-established drought indices, the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), to characterize drought duration and magnitude at different timescales over Spain. In order to map the drought hazard probability, we applied the extreme value theory and tested different thresholds to generate peak-over-threshold (POT) drought duration and magnitude series. Our results demonstrate that the generalized Pareto (GP) distribution performs well in estimating the frequencies of drought magnitude and duration. Specifically, we found a good agreement between the observed and modelled data when using upper percentiles to generate the POT series. Spatially, our estimations suggest a higher probability of extreme drought events in southern and central Spain compared to the northern and eastern regions. Also, our study found spatial differences in drought probability estimations as a function of the selected drought index (i.e. SPI vs. SPEI) and timescale (i.e. 1, 3, 6, and 12 months). Drought hazard probability maps can contribute to the better management of different sectors (e.g. agriculture, water resources management, urban water supply, and tourism) at national, regional, and even local scale in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We mapped - for the first time - the probability of occurrence of drought over Spain, with the overriding aim of improving current drought assessment, management and mitigation measures and strategies across the region. We employed two well-established drought indices: the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Drought characteristics (i.e. duration and severity) were characterised at 1-, 3-, 6- and 12-month, implying that drought event is attained only when the index values are lower than zero. We applied the extreme value theory to map drought hazard probability. Following this procedure, we tested different thresholds to generate the peak-over-threshold drought severity and magnitude series, besides evaluating different three-parametric distributions and thresholds to fit these series. Our results demonstrate that the Generalized Pareto distribution performs well in estimating the frequencies of drought magnitude and duration, with good agreement between the observed and modelled data when using upper percentiles to generate the peak-over-threshold series. Spatially, our estimations suggest a higher probability of extreme drought events in southern and central areas of Spain, compared to northern and eastern regions. Nevertheless, there are strong differences in drought probability estimations between drought indices (i.e. SPI and SPEI), as well as among drought timescales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article developed and implemented a new methodology for calculating the standardized evapotranspiration deficit index (SEDI) globally based on the log-logistic distribution to fit the evaporation deficit (ED), the difference between actual evapotranspiration (ETa) and atmospheric evaporative demand (AED). Our findings demonstrate that, regardless of the AED dataset used, a log-logistic distribution most optimally fitted the ED time series. As such, in many regions across the terrestrial globe, the SEDI is insensitive to the AED method used for calculation, with the exception of winter months and boreal regions. The SEDI showed significant correlations (p < 0.05) with the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) across a wide range of regions, particularly for short (<3 month) SPEI time scales. This work provides a robust approach for calculating spatially and temporally comparable SEDI estimates, regardless of the climate region and land surface conditions, and it assesses the performance and the applicability of the SEDI to quantify drought severity across varying crop and natural vegetation areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews current drought effects on environmental systems. It stresses the need for considering environmental drought as a relevant type to be included in drought classifications. Here we illustrate that drought has complex environmental effects and affects many different systems (e.g., soils, air, vegetation, and forests, aquatic systems and wildlife). Droughts can affect the quality, structure, and diversity of these systems. However, we find that most environmental systems show strong resistance and resilience to drought events, and the effects of drought are usually temporary. Structural effects of environmental droughts tend to only occur in areas that are perturbed or in communities near their distribution limits. There are few long-term experimental studies that quantify possible trends in drought effects on environmental systems. Nevertheless, existing studies of forests that are based on tree-ring chronologies or forest inventories indicate increased drought-related effects on environmental systems. Future climate change scenarios suggest increased drought severity worldwide, which could alter the vulnerability of different environmental systems and increase the number of structural drought effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]