Drought monitoring in Croatia using the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index

Abstract

Several periods of drought in the 21st century have severely affected large parts of Europe and caused considerable economic losses, particularly in the agricultural and energy sectors. While rainfall deficits are one of the main causes of droughts, high temperatures in the summer months exacerbate their development, which can have devastating consequences. This was the case in 2022, when long dry spells were accompanied by several heat waves. In this study, climatological drought monitoring using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) is analyzed with the primary goal of finding the best theoretical distribution for adjusting the water balance (defined as the difference between precipitation and potential evapotranspiration) in Croatia before the index is officially introduced into the operational drought monitoring. Although the SPEI is widely used for drought monitoring, the underlying theoretical distribution of the water balance may differ between regions. The study is based on monthly precipitation amounts and monthly mean values of daily minimum and maximum temperatures observed at 31 main meteorological stations for the period 1961–2022. The analysis is carried out for different time scales, ranging from 1 to 24 months. Among the five distributions considered, a generalized logistic distribution with three parameters (GLO) proves to be the most appropriate. There is general agreement between SPEI and SPI time series, both in terms of sign and intensity. However, in periods with a light to moderate lack of precipitation and high air temperatures, a tendency towards higher drought intensity prevails in the SPEI. A comparative analysis of the 2022 drought in Croatia confirmed the ability of the SPEI to detect a drought earlier than the SPI, which also suggests that a larger area of the country was affected by the drought due to consistent air temperature excesses.