%0 Journal Article
	%A Moumita Palchaudhuri and  Sujata Biswas
	%D 2013
	%J International Journal of Environmental and Ecological Engineering
	%B World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
	%I Open Science Index 75, 2013
	%T Analysis of Meteorological Drought Using Standardized Precipitation Index –  A Case Study of Puruliya District, West Bengal, India
	%U https://publications.waset.org/pdf/9996966
	%V 75
	%X Drought is universally acknowledged as a phenomenon associated with scarcity of water. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) expresses the actual rainfall as standardized departure from rainfall probability distribution function. In this study severity and spatial pattern of meteorological drought was analyzed in the Puruliya District, West Bengal, India using multi-temporal SPI. Daily gridded data for the period 1971-2005 from 4 rainfall stations surrounding the study area were collected from IMD, Pune, and used in the analysis. Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to generate drought severity maps for the different time scales and months of the year. Temporal SPI graphs show that the maximum SPI value (extreme drought) occurs in station 3 in the year 1993. Mild and moderate droughts occur in the central portion of the study area. Severe and extreme droughts were mostly found in the northeast, northwest and the southwest part of the region.

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