Assessing meteorological and agricultural drought characteristics and drought propagation in Guangdong, China

Study region: Guangdong, China Study focus: Droughts have resulted in significant crop failure in Guangdong province, where annual crop yield exceed 12 million tons. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive assessment of both meteorological drought and agricultural drought in Guangdong, particularly regarding the influencing factors and drought propagation. This study aims to address this gap by utilizing the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and soil water deficit index (SWDI) to represent meteorological drought and agricultural drought, respectively. To examine the characteristics of drought in the past 50 years (1973-2022), the year is divided into flood and non-flood season based on the temporal distribution of precipitation. New hydrological insights for the region: Over the last five decades, the number of meteorological and agricultural drought days decreases from coastal to inland areas. Notably, agricultural droughts have become more pronounced in the last two decades. More agricultural drought days appears during the non-flood season than the flood season. Precipitation emerges as the most influential factor for meteorological drought, while potential evapotranspiration, actual evapotranspiration and temperature are identified as the primary factors for agricultural drought. The drought propagation time ranges from 10 to 45 days which is shorter in central Guangdong than other regions, and it is longer in non-flood season than in flood season.