Drought events across the world are increasingly becoming a critical problem owing to its negative effects on water resources. There is need to understand on-site drought characteristics for the purpose of planning mi...Drought events across the world are increasingly becoming a critical problem owing to its negative effects on water resources. There is need to understand on-site drought characteristics for the purpose of planning mitigation measures. In this paper, meteorological drought episodes on spatial, temporal and trend domains were detected using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Effective Drought Index (EDI) in the upper Tana River basin. 41 years (1980-2016) monthly precipitation data from eight meteorological stations were used in the study. The SPI and EDI were used for reconstruction of the drought events and used to characterize the spatial, temporal and trend distribution of drought occurrence. Drought frequency was estimated as the ratio of a defined severity to its total number of events. The change in drought events was detected using a non-parametric man-Kendall trend test. The main drought conditions detected by SPI and EDI are severe drought, moderate drought, near normal, moderate wet, very wet and extremely wet conditions. From the results the average drought frequency between 1970 and 2010 for the south-eastern and north-western areas ranged from 12.16 to 14.93 and 3.82 to 6.63 percent respectively. The Mann-Kendall trend test show that drought trend increased in the south-eastern parts of the basin at 90% and 95% significant levels. However, there was no significant trend that was detected in the North-western areas. This is an indication that the south-eastern parts are more drought-prone areas compared to the North-western areas of the upper Tana River basin. Both the SPI and the EDI were effective in detecting the on-set of drought, description of the temporal variability, severity and spatial extent across the basin. It is recommended that the findings be adopted for decision making for drought-early warning systems in the river basin.展开更多
Hydrological models are considered as necessary tools for water and environmental resource management. However, modelling poorly gauged watersheds has been a challenge to hydrologists and hydraulic engineers. Research...Hydrological models are considered as necessary tools for water and environmental resource management. However, modelling poorly gauged watersheds has been a challenge to hydrologists and hydraulic engineers. Research done recently has shown the potential to overcome this challenge through incorporating satellite based hydrological and meteorological data in the measured data. This paper presents results for a study that used the semi-distributed conceptual HBV Light Model to model the rainfall-runoff in the Mara River Basin, Kenya. The model simulates runoff as a function of rainfall. It is built on the basis established between satellite observed and in-situ rainfall, evaporation, temperature and the measured runoff. The model’s performance and reliability were evaluated over two sub-catchments namely: Nyangores and Amala in the Mara River Basin using the Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency which the model referred to as Reff and the coefficient of determination (R2). The Reff for Nyangores and Amala during the calibration and (validation) period were 0.65 (0.68) and 0.59 (0.62) respectively. The model showed good flow simulations particularly during the recession flows, in the Nyangores sub-catchment whereas it simulated poorly the short term fluctuations of the high-flow for Amala sub-catchment. Results from this study can be used by water resources managers to make informed decision on planning and management of water resources.展开更多
文摘Drought events across the world are increasingly becoming a critical problem owing to its negative effects on water resources. There is need to understand on-site drought characteristics for the purpose of planning mitigation measures. In this paper, meteorological drought episodes on spatial, temporal and trend domains were detected using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Effective Drought Index (EDI) in the upper Tana River basin. 41 years (1980-2016) monthly precipitation data from eight meteorological stations were used in the study. The SPI and EDI were used for reconstruction of the drought events and used to characterize the spatial, temporal and trend distribution of drought occurrence. Drought frequency was estimated as the ratio of a defined severity to its total number of events. The change in drought events was detected using a non-parametric man-Kendall trend test. The main drought conditions detected by SPI and EDI are severe drought, moderate drought, near normal, moderate wet, very wet and extremely wet conditions. From the results the average drought frequency between 1970 and 2010 for the south-eastern and north-western areas ranged from 12.16 to 14.93 and 3.82 to 6.63 percent respectively. The Mann-Kendall trend test show that drought trend increased in the south-eastern parts of the basin at 90% and 95% significant levels. However, there was no significant trend that was detected in the North-western areas. This is an indication that the south-eastern parts are more drought-prone areas compared to the North-western areas of the upper Tana River basin. Both the SPI and the EDI were effective in detecting the on-set of drought, description of the temporal variability, severity and spatial extent across the basin. It is recommended that the findings be adopted for decision making for drought-early warning systems in the river basin.
文摘Hydrological models are considered as necessary tools for water and environmental resource management. However, modelling poorly gauged watersheds has been a challenge to hydrologists and hydraulic engineers. Research done recently has shown the potential to overcome this challenge through incorporating satellite based hydrological and meteorological data in the measured data. This paper presents results for a study that used the semi-distributed conceptual HBV Light Model to model the rainfall-runoff in the Mara River Basin, Kenya. The model simulates runoff as a function of rainfall. It is built on the basis established between satellite observed and in-situ rainfall, evaporation, temperature and the measured runoff. The model’s performance and reliability were evaluated over two sub-catchments namely: Nyangores and Amala in the Mara River Basin using the Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency which the model referred to as Reff and the coefficient of determination (R2). The Reff for Nyangores and Amala during the calibration and (validation) period were 0.65 (0.68) and 0.59 (0.62) respectively. The model showed good flow simulations particularly during the recession flows, in the Nyangores sub-catchment whereas it simulated poorly the short term fluctuations of the high-flow for Amala sub-catchment. Results from this study can be used by water resources managers to make informed decision on planning and management of water resources.
