Assessment of Hydrological Drought in Marathwada Region: A Spatio-temporal Analysis

The erratic nature of rainfall has increased the human dependency on surface and groundwater resources manifold. The increased pressure on surface water and groundwater resources makes hydrological drought a very important subject. The streamflow and run-off analysis are widely used methods for the quantification of hydrological drought. However, in the regions which lack perennial streams, the groundwater analysis may prove more effective for the assessment of hydrological drought rather than streamflow and run-off analysis. This study attempts to investigate the spatio-temporal patterns, frequency and intensity analysis of hydrological drought in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra state in India. The standardized water level index has been used to quantify hydrological drought. Maps have been generated to represent spatio-temporal patterns of hydrological drought. The frequency and intensity analysis of hydrological drought across seventy-six sub-districts were assessed by multiplying the frequency of each class of drought severity with its assigned weightage. The spatio-temporal assessment of hydrological drought depicts significant spatial expansion of hydrological drought during the period of 2011 to 2015. The analysis revealed that hydrological droughts of mild to the moderate category are more frequent than the severe and extreme droughts. However, there are also pieces of evidence of the severe and extreme drought occurrences in the Marathwada region, particularly more between the years 2011 and 2015.