Assessment of the Historical Variability of Meteorological Drought in Bangladesh

Abstract

Drought is the recurrent natural disasters which harshly affect agricultural production and society in various parts in Bangladesh. Information on thespatiotemporal variability of drought events plays a vital role to take necessary action towards drought mitigation and sustainable development. Thisstudy aims to analyze the spatial and temporal variation of meteorological drought in Bangladesh during 1981-2015 using Effective Drought Index(EDI). Monthly precipitation data for 36 years (1980-2015) were obtained from 27 meteorological stations. Drought frequency (DF) and areal extentof drought were considered to investigate the spatiotemporal structure of drought. The DF analysis showed that the northern, southwestern and centralregions of the country are comparatively vulnerable to meteorological drought. The frequency of drought in all categories has considerably increasedduring the recent five years from 2011 to 2015. Furthermore, the most significant increasing trend of the drought-affected area was found over thecentral region especially for pre-monsoon (March-May) season during this period while the decreasing trend of the affected area was found within theeastern region during the study period. To prevent and mitigate the damages of drought disasters in Bangladesh, agricultural and government managersshould pay more attention to those regional drought events that occur in pre-monsoon season. The outcome of the present study can be used asexplanatory data in building the strategies to drought monitoring and mitigation activities in Bangladesh.