Estimate of correlation between the meteorological drought in Ethiopia and the hydrological drought in Egypt

Abstract

Drought is one of the most complex natural phenomena and one of the main natural causes affecting agriculture, the economy and the environment in the world, and its impact has become evident significantly on the level of life on the globe in recent decades. It leads to droughts in different regions, so assessing the intensity of the drought period is one of the most important tools for sustainable agriculture, as drought has become a phenomenon in many parts of the world, especially in the East and North Africa region.The most important type of drought is metrological and hydrological drought, Drought indices were used to survey drought and demonstrate its performance. As a country in the world, Egypt suffers from water scarcity, especially in recent years. Therefore, the importance of studying Ethiopia as a study area comes due to the presence of the Blue Nile, which contributes about 85% of the Nile River's revenue.Metrological drought was calculated by the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI), and by hydrological by the Streamflow Drought Index (SDI) during the period from 1950 to 2017 based on the availability of the recorded data for meteorological stations in Ethiopia, and the streamflow for Dongola station, and then these data were evaluated using various methods, including homogeneity between the data for each station by considering the different time scales of periods 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months., As a result, There are three seasons of rain in Ethiopia, Kiremt is the main rainy season from June to September, Bega is the dry season from October to January, Belg is the lowest rainy season from February to May and Ethiopia characterized by four precipitation regimes, and we found a correlation between the meteorological index (SPI) for five stations in Ethiopia, and the hydrological index (SDI) for Dongola.Keywords: Ethiopia; Dongola; Meteorological drought; Hydrological drought.