Regional Analysis of Hydrological Drought in Ajichai Basin Using RDI Index

In drought risk management, the regional analysis of drought is significant. In this paper, this important issue is investigated by presenting the new hydrological regional drought index (RDI). For this purpose, the Ajichai basin was selected as the study area. First, the time series of the streamflow drought index (SDI) was calculated for each of the hydrometric stations in the basin f regional analysis of hydrological drought. Then, to determine the homogeneous regions in terms of hydrological drought, the k-means method was used for clustering analysis. Based on the clustering results, 6 Homogeneous regions were identified in the basin. For each of these regions, the time series of the RDI index was calculated from 1365 to 1393. The results showed that during the study period in each of the regions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, mild Wet and mild drought has occurred at 82.1, 80.1, 78.9, 83.3, and 84.3 percent of regions, respectively. Also, the total percentage of drought events (moderate and high) is higher than the total percentage of wet events (moderate and high) in all regions. So, during the study period, the total percentage of drought events (moderate and high) is more than twice the total percentage of wet events (moderate and high) in regions 2 and 3.