Droughts in the orography dominated mid-to-high elevation Himalaya have serious impact on the agrarian economy and biodiversity of the region. Temporally and spatially limited weather records from the Himalaya restrict our understanding on the socioeconomic impact of droughts in long-term perspective. In view of this, high-resolution proxies are required to develop long-term drought records from the data scarce Himalayan region. To fill this void, we developed February–May (FMAM) 4-month standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI4-May), a metric of drought, extending back to AD 1773 using ring-width chronology of Himalayan cedar (Cedrus deodara (Roxb.) G. Don) from Chakrata region of Garhwal, Uttarakhand, western Himalaya. The calibration model (1969–2016) captured 43% of the variance in the observed SPEI series. The SPEI reconstruction revealed high year-to-year and inter-decadal variation with 1774 (SPEI -3.11) and 1787 (SPEI +2.13) being the driest and the wettest years, respectively. The five year mean of reconstructed SPEI revealed droughts in 1818–1822, 1798–1802, 1813–1817, 1793–1797, 1958–1962 and pluvials in 1783–1787, 1838–1842, 1788–1792, 1933–1937, 1808–1812. A comparison of present SPEI reconstruction with other available tree-ring based precipitation and drought records from the western Himalayan region revealed synoptic scale features represented in our data. The findings underscore that a wide network of such large tree-ring based drought records from the data scarce Himalayan region should be very useful to understand the spatial distribution of droughts.

以中高海拔喜马拉雅山为主的地形干旱对该地区的农业经济和生物多样性产生了严重影响。来自喜马拉雅山的时间和空间有限的天气记录限制了我们对长期干旱社会经济影响的理解。鉴于此，需要高分辨率代理来从数据稀缺的喜马拉雅地区开发长期干旱记录。为了填补这一空白，我们开发了 2 月至 5 月 (FMAM) 4 个月标准化降水蒸发蒸腾指数 (SPEI4-May)，这是一种干旱指标，使用喜马拉雅雪松 ( Cedrus deodara(Roxb.) G. Don) 来自喜马拉雅西部北阿坎德邦 Garhwal 的 Chakrata 地区。校准模型（1969-2016）捕获了观察到的 SPEI 系列中 43% 的方差。SPEI 重建显示年际和年代际变化很大，1774 (SPEI -3.11) 和 1787 (SPEI +2.13) 分别是最干旱和最湿润的年份。重建的 SPEI 的五年平均值揭示了 1818-1822、1798-1802、1813-1817、1793-1797、1958-1962 和 1783-1787、1838-17819-1810-1810-18818181818181818-37 年的降雨1812. 将目前的 SPEI 重建与喜马拉雅西部地区其他可用的基于树木年轮的降水和干旱记录进行比较，揭示了我们数据中表示的天气尺度特征。