Analysis of drought situation in Iran using ECMWF precipitation product

Drought is one of the natural disasters occurring over a long period of time compared to other natural phenomena which intermittently impedes human societies through the negative impacts on water and agricultural resources and subsequently the economy. One of the methods of drought monitoring is the use of drought indices such as SPI. In this study, SPI index was used to study drought over the period 2001 to 2016. The SPI index is purely based on precipitation, so it is important to select a proper precipitation source to extract the SPI index at different time scales. Synoptic stations, due to lack of proper distribution and high statistical gaps, cannot be a reliable source of precipitation in this type of research, so global precipitation datasets having high spatial and temporal resolution can be used as a viable alternative to ground stations, in this study the Era-interim precipitation product, which is the product of the European Center for Medium range Weather Forecast was used. Initial results indicated that the Era-interim precipitation product could be used as a viable alternative to synoptic stations nationwide. Therefore, this precipitation product was used to assess the drought situation in the country. The study of drought status with respect to SPI indicated that with increasing SPI time scale dry and wet conditions became more severe so that mild dry and wet conditions in most in most month and years turned into severe dry and wet conditions.