Daily Monitoring of Drought and Water Resources in Different Climates of Iran

Drought based on frequency of occurrence، severity، affected area، economic damages، social affects and severe long term impacts is very important and dangerous phenomenon compared to other disasters. Therefore، it needs more consideration in decision making. Drought assessment and monitoring is the most important of technical aspects in drought studies. The objectives of current study is investigating of daily Effective Drought Index (EDI) and Available Water Resources Index (AWRI) in different climates of Iran in order to compare the results with runoff data of hydrometric gauging stations to understand the validation of these indices as well as to know the relationships between the indices and runoff data. Five synoptic meteorological stations in different climatic conditions of Iran were selected for this purpose and the indices were calculated. Then، five hydrometric gauging stations in the vicinity of the meteorological stations or in the area affected by the same climatic condition were selected and the runoff data and the calculated indices were compared. The result showed that the EDI as an independent of climatic characteristics is a suitable index in determining of drought، risk assessment and drought warning system. Meanwhile the AWRI showed the drought effects in water resources as function of daily decline of rainfall.