Drought -- National Drought Mitigation Center
Title
A Drought Watch System for Southeast Spain
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
August 1999
One of the main climatological characteristics of
the region of Murcia (11,300 km2), located almost
entirely in the Segura Basin (in southeast Spain), is
the great temporal and spatial irregularity of its precipitation.
Average annual precipitation values range
between 200 and 500 mm, and coefficients of variation
(CV) are high, with some values about 50%. It
is a semiarid region (including a small arid area), and
agriculture plays a major role in its economy. Because
of this, drought is one characteristic of the
region’s climate that has far-reaching consequences,
from unemployment to social conflicts.
It is important to define drought and identify
appropriate indicators for the region of Murcia as
part of a drought watch system. This system will
define the temporal and spatial limits of drought
conditions. It would help policy makers and government
officials establish policies for the provision of
aid to farmers and cattlemen, as in Australia (White
and O’Meagher, 1995).
Because of the wide range of drought impacts,
there are many definitions of this phenomenon. However,
one characteristic seems common to all of
them: drought is caused by a deficiency in precipitation
for a fairly long period of time. For simplicity,
and keeping in mind that precipitation is, without
doubt, the most important variable in the process, the
watch system developed for the region of Murcia
uses only this variable at the moment, establishing a
comparison with a climatological reference (1961–
90) that we consider “normal.”
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Published in Drought Network News Vol. 11, No. 2, May–August 1999. Published by the International Drought Information Center and the National Drought Mitigation Center, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska – Lincoln.