A modified method for drought identification

Water management under drought conditions is a challenging task to irrigation andagricultural engineers. The parameters of interest in identifying drought include onset, termination and severity. In this paper, a methodology to identify those parameters from the available historic data on streamflow and rainfall having seasonal pattern is proposed.The methodology follows and modifies a procedure by Herbst et al. (1966) suggested for theanalysis of drought. This modified methodologyis applied to the streamflow series of the Bhadra river and the mean areal rainfall seriesfor the catchment of the Bhadra reservoirin Karnataka State, India. The droughts identified by the proposed methodology are concurrent with the historically realized droughts, thusproving the viability and applicability of the methodology in the identification of drought conditions. © 1991 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.