Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Using multiple indexes to analyze temporal and spatial patterns of precipitation and drought in Xinjiang, China

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Theoretical and Applied Climatology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There is an urgent need to understand the characteristics of both precipitation and drought in arid regions of China. Different indexes may provide differing results in terms of the detection and estimation of the temporal and spatial extent of droughts. In this study, the temporal and spatial characteristics of rainfall and drought at 53 meteorological stations from 1960 to 2016 across the Xinjiang region of China were analyzed. Four precipitation-related indexes (precipitation concentration degree (PCD), precipitation concentration period (PCP), standardized precipitation index (SPI), and long-cycle drought–flood abrupt alternation index (LDFAI)) were used to investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of drought and flood. In addition, the Bayesian method and Pettitt test were used as detection tools to identify changing points in precipitation time series. The study indicated the following: (1) a wetting tendency was evident in recent years and was supported by the upward trend in SPI and inter-decadal variation in summer precipitation; (2) the spatial patterns and tendencies of PCD, PCP, and SPI were markedly different in southern and northern Xinjiang; (3) compared with the Pettitt test, use of the Bayesian method provided data closer to the real drought events; (4) it is suggested that multiple indices be used for detecting precipitation and drought characteristics as use of the SPI may lead to other indexes related to flood and drought risks being ignored.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allan RP, Soden BJ (2008) Atmospheric warming and the amplification of precipitation extremes. Science 321(5895):1481–1484

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forsee WJ, Ahmad S (2011) Evaluating urban storm-water infrastructure design in response to projected climate change. Hydrol Eng 16(11):865–873

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gao X, Pal JS, Giorgi F (2006) Projected changes in mean and extreme precipitation over the Mediterranean region from a high resolution double nested RCM simulation. Geophys Res Lett 33(3):155–170

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giorgi F, Lionello P 2008. Climate change projections for the Mediterranean region. Glob Planet Chang 63(2–3): 0–104

  • Jiang FQ, Zhu C, Hu RY (2002) Statistical and fractal features of the flood and drought disasters in Xinjiang from 1950 to 1997. J Nat Disasters 11(4):96–100

  • Jyrkama MI, Sykes JF, Normani SD (2002) Recharge estimation for transient ground water modeling. Ground Water 40(6):638–648

  • Karl TR, Knight RW, Easterling DR et al (1996) Indices of climate change for the United States. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 77(2):279–292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keyantash J, National Center for Atmospheric Research Staff (eds) (2018) The climate data guide: Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). Retrieved from https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/standardized-precipitation-index-spi. Accessed 29 June 2020

  • Li Y, Sun C (2016) Impacts of the superimposed climate trends on droughts over 1961–2013 in Xinjiang. Theor Appl Climatol

  • Li X, Jiang F, Li L et al (2011) Spatial and temporal variability of precipitation concentration index, concentration degree and concentration period in Xinjiang, China. Int J Climatol 31(11)

  • Libiseller C, Grimvall A (2002) Performance of partial Mann-Kendall tests for trend detection in the presence of covariates. Environmetrics 13:71–84. https://doi.org/10.1002/env.507

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu ZM (2017) Analysis on change characteristics of PCD and PCP in Beijiang River basin. Meteorological and Environmental Research 9(6):1–4

    Google Scholar 

  • Mann HB (1945) Nonparametric tests against trend. Econometrica 13:245–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mckee TB, Doesken NJ, Kleist R (1993) The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales. Eighth Conference on Applied Climatology 17:–22

  • Partal T, Kahya E (2006) Trend analysis in Turkish precipitation data. Hydrol Process 20:2011–2026

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patel NR, Chopra P, Dadhwal VK (2007) Analyzing spatial patterns of meteorological drought using standardized precipitation index. Meteorological Applications 14.4

  • Qian WH, Lin X (2005) Regional trends in recent precipitation indices in China. Meteorog Atmos Phys 90:193–207

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaer C, Frei C, Luthi C, Davies HC (1996) Surrogate climate change scenarios for regional climate models. Geophys Res Lett 23:669–672

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shi YF, Shen YP, Li DL, Zhang GW, Ding YJ, Hu RJ, Kang ES (2003) Discussion on the present climate change from warm-dry to warm-wet in Northwest China. Quat Sci 23:152–164

  • Su, B. , Huang, J. , Fischer, T. , Wang, Y. , Kundzewicz, Z. W. , & Zhai, J. , et al. (2018). Drought losses in China might double between the 1.5 C and 2.0 C warming. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1802129115

  • Sun DL, Wu JF, Li W et al (2016) Spatial and temporal distribution of drought in Chongqing in recent 50 years based on SPI index. Soil and Water Conservation Bulletin 36(4):197–203

    Google Scholar 

  • Tan XZ, Thian YG, Shao DG (2017) Effects of persistence and large-scale climate anomalies on trends and change points in extreme precipitation of Canada. J Hydrol 550:453–465

  • Wang W, Chen X, Shi P et al (2008) Detecting changes in extreme precipitation and extreme streamflow in the Dongjiang River basin in southern China. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 12(1):207–221

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang P, Quinlan P, Tartakovsky DM (2009) Effects of spatio-temporal variability of precipitation on contaminant migration in the vadose zone. Geophys Res Lett 36:L12404

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang SP, Zhang CJ, Li YH et al (2014) Analysis of multi-timescale drought variation based on standardized precipitation index in China during 1960 to 2011. J Desert Res 34(3):827–834

    Google Scholar 

  • Wu ZW, Li JP, He JH, Jiang ZH (2006) Large-scale atmospheric singularities and summer long-cycle droughts-floods abrupt alternation in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Chin Sci Bull 51(16):2027–2034

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu ZY, Xie P, Sang YF, Gu HT (2018) Principles and methods of hydrological sequence jump variation classification based on correlation coefficient. J Appl Ecol 29(04):1042–1050

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu K, Yang D, Yang H et al (2015) Spatio-temporal variation of drought in China during 1961–2012: a climatic perspective. J Hydrol 526:253–264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.09.047

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xue J, Gui DW, Lei JQ, Sun HW, Zeng FJ, Mao DL et al (2018) Oasis microclimate effects under different weather events in arid or hyper arid regions: a case analysis in southern Taklimakan desert and implication for maintaining oasis sustainability. Theor Appl Climatol 137:89–101

  • Yang P, Xia J, Zhang Y et al (2005) Quantile regression and clustering analysis of standardized precipitation index in the Tarim River basin, Xinjiang, China. Theor Appl Climatol 2017(1):1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2313-4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhai PM, Zhang XB, Wan H, Pan XH (2005) Trends in total precipitation and frequency of daily precipitation extremes over China. J Clim 18:1096–1108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang LJ, Qian YF (2003) Annual distribution features of precipitation in China and their interannual variations. Acta Meteorological Sinica 17:146–163

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Q, Liu CL, Xu CY, Xu YP, Jiang T (2006) Observed trends of annual maximum water level and streamflow during past 130 years in the Yangtze River basin, China. J Hydrol 324:255–265

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Q, Xu CY, Zhang ZX, Ren GY (2008) Climate change or variability? The case of Yellow river as indicated by extreme maximum and minimum air temperature during 1960–2004. Theor Appl Climatol 93:35–43

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Q, Xu CY, Marco G, Chen YP, Liu CL (2009) Changing properties of precipitation concentration in the Pearl River basin, China. Stoch Env Res Risk A 23:377–385

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Q, Sun P, Li J et al (2014) Spatiotemporal properties of droughts and related impacts on agriculture in Xinjiang, China. Int J Climatol 35(7):1254–1266. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.4052

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang YR, Sun A, Sun HW, Gui DW, Xue J, Liao WH (2019) Error adjustment of TMPA satellite precipitation estimates and assessment of their hydrological utility in the middle and upper Yangtze River basin, China. Atmos Res 216:52–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their special gratitude to the national meteorological scientific data sharing service platform (http://data.cma.cn/).

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51879110, 52011530128), Hubei Natural Science Foundation (2017CFB724), and Hubei Provincial Water Resources Key Scientific Research Project (HBSLKY201803, HBSLKY201907).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hydropower and Information Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Guoqing Cai, Shujun Chen, Huaiwei Sun & Dong Yan

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yi Liu & Dongwei Gui

  3. State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, 830011, China

    Yi Liu & Dongwei Gui

  4. Administration of Main stream of Tarim River Basin, Korla, 841000, Xinjiang, China

    Changqing Chen

Authors
  1. Guoqing Cai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Shujun Chen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yi Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Huaiwei Sun
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Changqing Chen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Dongwei Gui
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Dong Yan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Huaiwei Sun.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Cai, G., Chen, S., Liu, Y. et al. Using multiple indexes to analyze temporal and spatial patterns of precipitation and drought in Xinjiang, China. Theor Appl Climatol 142, 177–190 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-020-03302-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-020-03302-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation