Quantification of drought using a rectangular pulses Poisson process model

Abstract

This study applied the rectangular pulses Poisson process model (RPPM) to the quantification and analysis of drought. A theoretical methodology of drought severity-duration-frequency (drought S-D-F) analysis was proposed based on the model structure of the RPPM. The methodology was then applied to the truncated SPI time series derived for the Seoul rain gauge station to evaluate major drought events, and then to a total of 59 rain gauge stations over the Korean peninsula to characterize the spatial pattern of droughts in Korea. Both point and spatial analysis of drought based on the drought S-D-F curve showed very comparable results with those from previous studies. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.