A study on drought in Hai Duong province during dry months in the context of climate change

Abstract

Hai Duong is a province in the Red River Delta with a GDP of 3020 USD\year. Its economy depends heavily on natural conditions, especially in the agricultural sector. In the context of climate change, drought will be a natural disaster that greatly affects the economy - especially agriculture. Using the correlation evaluation method and building complex regression equations, a good correlation was found between the total evaporation with the total monthly rainfall, monthly mean temperature, monthly mean maximum temperature, and monthly minimum temperature. This is the basis for calculating potential future evaporation based on climate change and sea level rise scenarios. Using the method of calculating the drought index K using the input data of climate change and sea level rise scenarios for Vietnam, the study has calculated the drought evolution for the three driest months of the year (12, 1, 2) for the period 2021 - 2050 in Hai Duong province. The results show that with both scenarios RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, the drought index is at arid and very arid levels. The drought level in the RCP 8.5 scenario is higher than in the RCP 4.5 scenario, the drought level at Chi Linh meteorological station is 1.4 - 1.5 times higher than the drought level at Hai Duong meteorological station and especially, the drought is cyclical with the scenario RCP 8.5, which shows the maximum every 9 - 10 years.