Recent Studies from Southwest Forestry University Add New Data to Science

2021 JAN 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators publish new report on science. According to news reporting originating from Southwest Forestry University by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Drought refers to a meteorological disaster that causes insufficient soil moisture and damage to crop water balance due to long-term lack of precipitation.”

Financial supporters for this research include National Natural Science Foundation of China-Yunnan Joint Fund.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Southwest Forestry University: “With the increasing shortage of water resources, drought has become one of the hot issues of global concern. The standardized precipitation index (SPI) and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) can effectively reflect the changes in drought characteristics of different geomorphologies in Sichuan on time and space scales, to explore the difference in drought characteristics between different physiognomy types in Sichuan Province, We calculated the SPI and SPEI values based on the data of 44 meteorological stations in Sichuan Province from 1961 to 2019 and used Mann-Kendall trend test and multivariable linear regression method (MLR) to quantify the significance of the drought characteristic trends at different time and space scales. The results as follow: (1) The SPEI drought trend in plain and hilly regions was greater than that in plateau and mountain regions on all time scales (- 0.039 year-1 for 1-month in hilly, - 0.035 year-1 for 1-month in plain, - 0.14 year-1 for 1-month in plateau, - 0.026 year-1 for 1-month in mountain) and the magnitude of trend of eastern (- 4.4 to 0.1 year-1) was lager than western (- 2.1 to 2.7 year-1), means that the drought trends transfer from northwest to east. (2) The drought intensity in the western region gradually increased (0.54-1.05) and drought events mainly occurred in the southwest plateau and central mountainous regions (24-47 times), means that drought meteorological hotspots were mainly concentrated in the Sichuan basin. (3) The MLR indicated altitude (H) is not the main influencing factor that causes the spatial unevenness of precipitation in Sichuan Province, but altitude (H), temperature (T), longitude (L o) and latitude (L a) can co-determined the precipitation.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “The results of this study are instructive and practical for drought assessment, risk management and application decision-making in Sichuan Province, and have guiding significance for agricultural disaster prevention, mitigation and agricultural irrigation in Sichuan Province.”

For more information on this research see: Spatiotemporal drought analysis by the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) in Sichuan Province, China. Scientific Reports, 2021,11(1):1-14. (Scientific Reports - http://www.nature.com/srep/index.html). The publisher for Scientific Reports is Nature Publishing Group.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80527-3.

Our news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Changhong Liu, Institute of Environment Remediation and Human Health, Southwest Forestry University. Additional authors for this research include Cuiping Yang, Qi Yang, Jiao Wang.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)