Univariate meteorological drought indices are inadequate to represent the complexity of hydrological conditions under the intensification of hydrological cycle due to climate change at catchment scale. In this study, Standardised Precipitation Actual Evapotranspiration Index (SPAEI) was proposed, which can combine both meteorological and hydrological drought characteristics at catchment scale. The proposed new drought index considers the hydrologically calibrated AET to account for the water use in addition to meteorological effect. The proposed hydrometeorological drought index was potential in identifying meteorological and hydrological drought events accounting for the time-lag effects and comparable with Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM) remote sensing AET data-based drought index. The PET based drought index of SPEI, which is based on energy demand, has shown intensified drought characteristics compared to SPAEI_Hydro, which is based on both energy demand and available moisture supply and can be a promising variable in the drought estimation. The climate change projections of precipitation and temperatures downscaled using statistical downscaling model based on K-means clustering, Classification and Regression Trees and Support Vector Regression were used using three General Circulation Model outputs. Intensified drought characteristics under climate change has been predicted over Krishna River basin, India, in terms of increase of drought areal extent of about 25%-31%, with increase of drought frequency as 5 years per 20 years and durations as 4-5 months based on the proposed hydrometeorological drought index of SPAEI_Hydro.

由于流域尺度上的气候变化，在水文循环加剧的情况下，单变量的气象干旱指数不足以表示水文条件的复杂性。在这项研究中，提出了标准的降水实际蒸散指数（SPAEI），它可以结合流域尺度上的气象和水文干旱特征。拟议的新干旱指数除考虑气象影响外，还考虑了经水文校正的AET来考虑用水。拟议的水文气象干旱指数具有潜在的气象和水文干旱事件的潜在时空效应，可与基于全球陆地蒸发阿姆斯特丹模型（GLEAM）的遥感AET数据干旱指数相媲美。基于SPEI的PET干旱指数，_水电是基于能源需求和可用水分供应的，在干旱评估中可能是有希望的变量。使用基于K均值聚类的统计缩减模型，分类和回归树以及支持向量回归的三项通用环流模型输出，使用了降水和温度的气候变化预测。据预测，印度克里希纳河流域气候变化将加剧干旱特征，干旱面积增加约25％-31％，干旱频率每20年增加5年，持续时间为4-5个月基于建议的SPAEI_水文气象干旱指数。