Date of Award
9-1-2021
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Geography and Environmental Resources
First Advisor
Schoof, Justin
Abstract
Drought is conventionally known as a slow-developing natural hazard. In recent years, a subset of drought events characterized by rapid onset has been identified and deemed “flash” droughts. These flash droughts can result in rapid soil drying and rapid vegetation degradation making them damaging to agriculture and the economy, so it is essential to develop reliable early warning systems for flash drought events. This study aims to compare the climatology between flash and non-flash droughts across the Contiguous United States (CONUS) and regionally to identify key differences in the drought types to improve early warning. Flash drought is defined as a two- or more category degradation in the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) in 4 weeks or less. Potential evapotranspiration (PET), vapor pressure deficit (VPD), maximum temperature (Tmax), and minimum temperature (Tmin) from the Gridded Surface Meteorological Dataset (gridMET) were also analyzed for flash and non-flash drought. It was found that using this definition of flash drought, flash droughts are up to 70% more likely to occur than non-flash droughts over all of the CONUS except the west coast. The South and Southwest regions are more likely to have more frequent and longer flash drought events than the Northwest and Plains regions. This study concludes that PET and VPD are the most reliable variables for differentiating between a flash and non-flash drought event. Furthermore, flash drought is most prevalent and will be the most difficult to predict in the South and Southwest regions and easier to predict in the Northwest and Plains. Also, using a flash drought definition of a drop in two or more categories in the USDM may be too lenient. A narrower flash drought definition, such as a drop in two categories over a two- or three-week period, may be more reflective of the more damaging nature of flash drought events.
Access
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