Drought Evaluation and Management

Drought has brought about dramatic decline in surface water flows, decrease in underground reservoirs, water, wind, and soil erosion, change in the quality of water and soil resources, an increasing exploitation of underground waters and land subsidence. Hence, it is of prior importance to evaluate drought and its periods in order to reduce the effects of this phenomenon and manage its risks. In this research, precipitation data of the synoptic meteorology station in Saravan during the years 1365-1395 has been applied and drought has been approved through indices such as standard precipitation index, normal percentage index, decile index, Chinese CZI index, reclaimed MCZI index, and Z index. In the present study, there is a high linear correlation between the three indices namely, SPI, ZSI, and CZI pairwise, while the correlation between MCZI with the other above-mentioned indices in 24-month and 48-month time scales is low. High correlation and the conformance of the curves related to the three indices of SPI, ZSI and CZI denotes on the fact that these three indices demonstrate similar results, while MCZI is not the same. Therefore, MCZI must be considered separately in the studies. By routing drought with several indices, this phenomenon seems probable during the years 1396-1400; accordingly, different solutions to manage this crisis such as adaptable cropping pattern with the climate and water resources of Saravan and cultivation resistant plants against drought and rebuilding the qanats of Saravan, and other solutions have been offered.