ANÁLISIS LOCAL DE LAS CARACTERÍSTICAS Y FRECUENCIA DE LAS SEQUIAS EXTREMAS EN MÁLAGA, UTILIZANDO EL SPI (STANDARDIZED PRECIPITATION INDEX).

Abstract

Drought is a natural and worldwide phenomenon that has significant economic, social and environmental impacts. It is characterized by persistent time periods with registered rainfall data below the mean, and is one of the major climate related hazard. The SPI (Standardized Precipitation Index) is simple and probabilistic meteorological index widely used to identify the duration and severity of droughts. It can be used in risk management and decision analysis, and can be tailored to time periods of user’s interest. It only needs rainfall data. In this work, the duration, intensity and magnitude of extreme droughts for the period 1945-2011 have been characterized in Malaga (Airport) by using monthly rainfall data. The frequency of the events has been also obtained. The drought events were identified and characterized using the SPI applied to time scales of 1, 3, 6 and 12 consecutive months.