Title: Analysis of drought, its impact on land use/land cover and duration-severity analysis for the Sone River catchment, Bihar

Authors: Suraj Kumar; Thendiyath Roshni

Addresses: Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Patna, India ' Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Patna, India

Abstract: Drought is a natural hazard, which poses significant threat on water and food security. Drought indices are calculated for the Sone River catchment, Bihar utilising drought indices calculator (DrinC) software for the period 1991-2014. Standard precipitation index, deciles, reconnaissance drought index and streamflow drought index are the indices calculated by the DrinC software. Results of correlation analysis between SPI and RDI showed a R² value of 0.99 for both monthly and annual time scale. The drought conditions were found to be severe in the year 2010. The study was also extended to assess the impact of drought on land use/land cover which depicted a decrease of agriculture land from 89% to 84%, water body increases from 1% to 2% and increase of built-up land from 8% to 12%. The joint probability distribution of drought characteristics was also studied through bivariate modelling of droughts and found that Frank copula is suitable for the catchment area.

Keywords: copula; DrinC; drought; land use/land cover; LULC.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHST.2021.117546

International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology, 2021 Vol.12 No.3, pp.316 - 332

Received: 21 Aug 2019
Accepted: 02 Jun 2020
Published online: 13 Sep 2021 *

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