HYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES

Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)

Published online 19 November 2007 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/hyp.6820

Spatial and temporal characteristics of droughts in the

western part of Bangladesh
Shamsuddin Shahid*
Department of Geography, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa

Abstract:
Spatial and temporal characteristics of droughts in the western part of Bangladesh have been analysed. Standardized
precipitation index method is used to compute the severity of droughts from the rainfall data recorded in 12 rainfall gauge
stations for the period of 1961–1999. An artificial neural network is used to estimate missing rainfall data. Geographic
Information System (GIS) is used to map the spatial extent of droughts of different severities in multiple time scales. Critical
analysis of rainfall is also carried to find the minimum monsoon and dry months rainfall require in different parts of the study
area to avoid rainfall deficit. The study shows that the north and north-western parts of Bangladesh are most vulnerable to
droughts. A significant negative relationship between multiple ENSO index and rainfall is observed in some stations. Analysis
of seasonal rainfall distribution, rainfall reliability and long-term rainfall trend is also conducted to aid prediction of future
droughts in the area. Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

KEY WORDS droughts; rainfall; standardized precipitation index; GIS; Bangladesh

Received 14 June 2006; Accepted 1 May 2007

INTRODUCTION Drought is a dynamic phenomenon, which changes

Droughts are recurrent phenomena in the western part of
Bangladesh. Since independence in 1971, the country has
suffered from nine droughts of major magnitude (Paul,
1998). The impact of droughts was higher in the west-
ern part of the country compared to other parts. In recent
decades, the hydro-climatic environment of north-western
Bangladesh has been aggravated by environmental degra-
dation and cross- country anthropogenic interventions
(Banglapedia, 2003). Scientists have become increasingly
concerned about the frequent occurrence of drought in
western districts of Bangladesh, and this paper reports
on studies of drought conditions in the western part of
Bangladesh.
Although droughts may occur at any time of the year,
the impact of droughts during the pre-monsoon period is
more severe in Bangladesh. High yield variety Boro rice,
which is cultivated in 88% of the potentially available
areas of the country, grows during this time. A deficit
of rainfall during this period causes huge damage to
agriculture and to the economy of the country. As for
example, drought in 1995 led to a decrease in rice
and wheat production of 3Ð5 ð 106 ton in the country
(Rahman and Biswas, 1995). This necessitated the import
of huge amount of food grains to offset the shortage
in national stocks and meet the national demand on an
emergency basis (Paul, 1998). In this paper, pre-monsoon
drought as well as droughts due to a deficit of monsoon
rainfall have been studied.
* Correspondence to: Shamsuddin Shahid, Department of Geography,
Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa.
E-mail: sshahid ait@yahoo.com
over time and space. Therefore, complete analysis of
drought requires study of its spatial and temporal extents.
Hydrological investigation over a large area requires
assimilation of information from many sites, each with a
unique geographic location (Shahid et al., 2000). Geo-
graphic Information System (GIS) maintains the spatial
location of sampling points, and provides tools to relate
the sampling data through a relational database. There-
fore, it can be used effectively for the analysis of spatially
distributed hydro-meteorological data and modelling. In
the present paper, GIS is used for the spatial modelling
of droughts in western Bangladesh at various time-scales.
The common indicators of drought include meteoro-
logical variables such as precipitation and evaporation,
as well as hydrological variables such as stream flow,
groundwater levels, reservoir and lake levels, snow pack,
soil moisture, etc. Based on these indicators, numer-
ous indices have been developed to identify the sever-
ity of drought conditions (Dracup et al., 1980; Wilhite
and Glantz, 1985, 1987). However, most meteorolog-
ical drought indices are based on precipitation data,
e.g. Percentage of Normal Index (Banerji and Chabra,
1964), Precipitation Deciles Index (Gibbs and Maher,
1967), Bhalme–Mooley Drought Index (Bhalme and
Mooley, 1980), Standardized Precipitation Index (McKee
et al., 1993), Effective Drought Index (Byun and Wilhite,
1999), etc. Among these methods, the Standardized Pre-
cipitation Index (SPI) quantifies the precipitation deficit
for multiple time steps, and therefore facilitates the tem-
poral analysis of droughts. It has been found that SPI
is better able to show how drought in one region com-
pares to drought in another region (Guttman, 1998). It

Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

2236 S. SHAHID
has also been reported that SPI provides a better spa-
tial standardization than the other indices (Lloyd-Hughes
and Saunders, 2002). Therefore, SPI is used to study
the spatial and temporal characteristics of meteorological
drought in western Bangladesh. Critical rainfall analysis,
seasonal rainfall distribution, rainfall reliability and long-
term rainfall trend are also studied to aid prediction of
droughts in the area.
HYDRO-CLIMATE OF BANGLADESH
Geographically, Bangladesh extends from 20° 340 N to
26° 380 N latitude and from 88° 010 E to 92° 410 E longi-
tude. Climatically, the country belongs to the sub-tropical
region where monsoon weather prevails throughout the
year in most parts of the country. The average tempera-
ture of the country ranges from 17 ° C to 20Ð6 ° C during
winter and 26Ð9 ° C to 31Ð1 ° C during summer. The aver-
age relative humidity for the whole year ranges from
70Ð5% to 78Ð1%, with a maximum in September and a
minimum in March. Three distinct seasons can be rec-
ognized in Bangladesh from the climatic point of view:
(i) the dry winter season from December to February;
(ii) the pre-monsoon hot summer season from March to
May; and (iii) the rainy monsoon season, which lasts
from June to October (Rashid, 1991).
The spatial distribution of rainfall over the country is
shown in Figure 1a. The map has been prepared from
rainfall data for the 30 years 1970–1999, available at
50 meteorological stations situated in and around the
country. The average annual rainfall of the country varies
from 1329 mm in the north-west to 4338 mm in the
north-east (Shahid et al., 2005). The map shows that the
western part of Bangladesh receives much lower rainfall
than other parts of the country. The monthly distribution
of rainfall over the western part of the country is shown
on the graph in Figure 1b. The monthly distribution is
calculated from rainfall data for the 39 years 1961–1999
available at 12 stations in the study area. The right
vertical axis of the graph represents rainfall in millimetres
and the left vertical axis represents the rainfall as a
percentage of annual total rainfall. The graph shows that
rainfall is very much seasonal in the area, almost 77%
of rainfall occurring during the monsoon. In summer, the
hottest days experience temperatures of 45 ° C or even
hotter. In the winter the temperature falls to 5 ° C in some
places (Banglapedia, 2003). Thus, the region experiences
two extremities that clearly contrast with the climatic
conditions of the rest of the country.
A dryness study of Bangladesh, carried out using the
De Martonne aridity index (Figure 2a) and the Thornth-
waite precipitation effectiveness index (Figure 2b) meth-
ods (Essenwanger, 2001) from climatic data for the
30 years 1970–1999 available at 50 meteorological sta-
tions situated in and around Bangladesh, shows that west-
ern side of Bangladesh can be classified ‘sub-humid’,
the central part ‘humid’ and a small part of the north-
eastern side ‘wet’. The lowest index values obtained
Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
by De Martonne and Thornthwaite methods are 20Ð89
and 64Ð04, respectively, in the central-western and north-
western parts of Bangladesh. As the dryness index values
in the region are close to those of a dry zone, the climate
of these regions of Bangladesh can be considered very
close to ‘dry’. The total annual evapotranspiration in this
part of Bangladesh is also lower than or equal to the
annual rainfall in some years. The location map of the
study area is shown in Figure 3.
DATA AND METHODS
Rainfall data for the 39 years 1961–1999 from 12
meteorological stations in the western part of Bangladesh
was used to study the characteristics of meteorological
drought. The main problem encountered during the study
of droughts is missing rainfall data. The methods used to
estimate the missing rainfall data and to study drought
characteristics are discussed below.
Estimation of missing rainfall data
Numerous methods for estimating missing data have
been described in the literature (Creutin and Obled, 1982;
Seo et al., 1990; Kuligowshi and Barros, 1998; Schnei-
der, 2001; Teegavarapu and Chandramouli, 2005). In the
present study, a feedforward artificial neural network
(ANN) approach similar to that proposed by Teegavarapu
and Chandramouli (2005) is used for the estimation of
missing rainfall data. ANNs are computer models that
mimic the structure and functioning of the human brain,
and are known for their ability to generalize well on a
wide variety of problems and are well suited to predic-
tion applications (Bishop, 1995). Unlike many statistical
methods, ANN models do not make dependency assump-
tions among input variables and can solve multivariate
problems with nonlinear relationships among input vari-
ables. The efficiency of ANN models does not depend
on the density of measuring stations, rather on the num-
ber of stations used for the estimation of missing data
(Teegavarapu and Chandramouli, 2005). As the density
of rain gauges in the study area is low and ANNs are
supposed to be suited to any distribution of rainfall sta-
tions, the method is used in this paper for the estimation
of missing rainfall data.
The missing rainfall data is random in most stations,
however, continuous missing data for several years is
also evident at some stations. The percentage of missing
rainfall data varies between 6% and 22% from station
to station, except one station (Khepupara), where about
39% of the data is missing. The average level of missing
rainfall data in the study area is 14%. Although the per-
formance of ANNs improves with increasing percentage
of training data, studies have shown that training with
60% of the total data can reliably estimate unknown data
(Teegavarapu and Chandramouli, 2005). Therefore, it can
be assumed that the ANN model estimated missing data
in the present study with acceptable accuracy.
Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
 DROUGHTS OF BANGLADESH
Figure 1. (a) Spatial distribution of annual mean rainfall over Bangladesh; (b) monthly distribution of rainfall in the western part of Bangladesh
The topology of the ANN used for the estimation of
missing rainfall data is 6 : 4 : 1, as shown in Figure 4. The
topology was selected using a trial and error procedure.
The input neurons use values from six neighbouring
stations around the station of interest and the output
neuron of the ANN provides the missing value at the
station of interest. Neural network training is done
using a supervised back-propagation training algorithm
(Rumelhart and Mclelland, 1986; Haykin, 1994). The
choice of learning rate, momentum factor and activation
function for the ANN determines the rate and reliability
of the training of the network. In the present case, a
learning rate of 0Ð1 and momentum factor of 0Ð4 was
used. These factors were obtained by a trial and error
method (Haykin, 1994). A gradient descent technique
was used to adopt weights in the ANN structure to
minimize the mean squared difference between the ANN
Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
2237
output and the desired output. In the hidden and output
layers, a sigmoidal activation function was used to model
the transformation of values across the layers. After
computing the missing rainfall data, a geospatial database
of rainfall time series is developed within a GIS by
following the concept proposed by Goodall et al. (2004).
Calculation of standardized precipitation index
The standardized precipitation index (SPI, Mckee
et al., 1993) is a widely used drought index based on the
probability of precipitation for multiple time scales, e.g.
1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, 12-, 18- and 24-month. It provides a com-
parison of the precipitation over a specific period with the
precipitation totals from the same period for all the years
included in the historical record. For example, a 3-month
SPI at the end of May compares the March-April-May
precipitation total in that particular year with the March
Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
2238 S. SHAHID

Figure 2. Aridity maps obtained by (a) De Martonne aridity index; and (b) Thornthwaite precipitation effectiveness index methods from rainfall data
for the 30 years 1970– 1999

to May precipitation totals of all the years. Consequently, x

ˇD
it facilitates the temporal analysis of drought phenomena. ˛
To compute SPI, historic rainfall data at each station where: 
are fitted to a gamma probability distribution function: ln
x
A D ln
x

1 n
g
x D ˛  ˛
1 e
x/ˇ for x>0 and n D number of precipitation observations. This
ˇ 
˛
allows the rainfall distribution at the station to be effec-
where ˛ > 0 is a shape parameter, ˇ > 0 is a scale tively represented by a mathematical cumulative proba-
parameter, x > 0 is the amount of precipitation, and 
˛ bility function given by:
defines the gamma function.  x  x
1
The maximum likelihood solutions are used to opti- G
x D g
xdx D ˛ x ˛
1 e
x/ˇ dx
0 ˇ 
˛ 0
mally estimate the gamma distribution parameters, ˛ and
ˇ for each station and for each time scale: Since the gamma function is undefined for x D 0 and a
precipitation distribution may contain zeros, the cumula-

 
1 4A tive probability becomes:
˛D 1C 1C
4A 3 H
x D q C
1
qG
x

Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
 DROUGHTS OF BANGLADESH 2239

almost once per decade. Details of the SPI algorithm can

be found in Guttman (1998; 1999), McKee et al. (1993;
1995) and Hayes et al. (1999).

Rainfall reliability
To compute rainfall reliability, the coefficient of rain-
fall variation (CV) in percentage is used,

CV D 100 ð
υ/R

where υ D standard deviation, and R D arithmetic mean

of rainfall (mm).

Spatial interpolation
For the mapping of the spatial extent of rainfall and
droughts from point data, a Kriging interpolation method
is used. Geostatistical analysis tool of ArcMap 9Ð1 (ESRI,
2004) is used for this purpose. Kriging is a stochas-
tic interpolation method (Journel and Huijbregts, 1981;
Isaaks and Srivastava, 1989), which is widely recog-
nized as a standard approach for surface interpolation
based on scalar measurements at different points. Stud-
ies showed that Kriging gives better global predictions
than other methods (van Beers and Kleijnen, 2004). How-
ever, Kriging is an optimal surface interpolation method
based on spatially dependent variance, which is gener-
ally expressed as a semi-variogram. Surface interpolation
Figure 3. Study area and the location of meteorological stations
using Kriging depends on the selected semi-variogram
model, and the semi-variogram must be fitted with a
mathematical function or model. Depending on the shape
of semi-variograms, different models are used in the
present study for their fitting.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The occurrence of droughts in the study area is identified
from SPI time series of multiple-time steps. In the present
study, SPI for 3- and 6-months time steps are computed to
Figure 4. Topology of artificial neural network used for the estimation of study the characteristics of drought in short and medium
missing rainfall data time periods. The 3-month SPI is used to describe the
pre-monsoon drought, while the 6-month SPI is used to
where, q is the probability of a zero. The cumulative characterize seasonal droughts that occur due to rainfall
probability H
x is then transformed to the standard deficit in monsoon and non-monsoon months.
normal distribution to yield the SPI (McKee et al., 1993).
As the precipitation rate is fitted to a gamma distribu- Temporal and spatial distribution of drought
tion for different time scales for each month of the year, The regional SPI time series are calculated by a
the resulting function represents the cumulative proba- Thiessen polygon method for 3 and 6-months time steps,
bility of a rainfall event for a station for a given month and are shown in Figure 5a and b, respectively. Major
of the dataset and at different time scales of interest.
This allows one to establish classification values for SPI.
Table I. Drought categories defined for SPI values
McKee et al. (1993) classified drought severity according
to SPI values as given in Table I. An SPI of 2 or more SPI value Drought category Probability of
represents a very severe drought, and happens about 2Ð3% occurrence (%)
of the time or about once in every fifty years. An SPI
between
1Ð5 and
1Ð99 represents a severe drought, 0 to
0Ð99 Near normal or mild drought 34Ð1

1Ð00 to
1Ð49 Moderate drought 9Ð2
and happens about 4Ð4% of the time or once in every

1Ð50 to
1Ð99 Severe drought 4Ð4
25 years. An SPI between
1Ð0 and
1Ð49 represents a
2Ð00 and less Extreme drought 2Ð3
moderate drought, and happens about 9Ð2% of the time or

Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
2240 S. SHAHID

Figure 5. Arial values of SPI for (a) 3-month and (b) 6-month time steps

droughts identified from the areal SPI time series are

in the years of 1963, 1966, 1968, 1973, 1977, 1979,
1982, 1989, 1992 and 1994–1995. Spatial extension of
the 3-month SPI at the end of May and 6-month SPI
at the end of November for the four worst drought
years in Bangladesh after independence in 1971 is
shown in Figures 6 and 7, respectively. The 3-month
SPI calculated for May uses the precipitation total for
March, April and May while the 6-month SPI calculated
for November uses the precipitation total for June to
November. The 3-month SPI shows a pre-monsoon
drought and the 6-month SPI at the end of November
shows a seasonal monsoon drought.
Figure 6 shows that in 1982, 62% of the study area was
affected by drought, among which, 12% was affected by
severe droughts and 9% was by very severe pre-monsoon
drought. In 1989 and 1992, the whole study area was
affected by drought. About 78% of the area in 1989 and
26% of the area in 1992 was affected by severe drought.
In 1995, almost 95% of the area was affected by drought,
with 49% of the area experiencing severe drought and
22% experiencing very severe pre-monsoon drought.
The spatial extent of the 6-month SPI (Figure 7) shows
that in 1982, almost 44% of the study area was affected
by drought, with almost 21% of the area affected by
severe drought (SPI <1Ð5). In 1989, about 65% of the
area was affected by drought, with 13% affected by
severe drought and 4% by very severe drought. In 1992
almost 72% of the area had an SPI less than
1Ð0 and
23% of the area had an SPI less than
2Ð0. In 1995 about
45% of the area had a 6-month SPI below
1Ð0 and 29%
had an SPI less than
1Ð5. The spatial extent of both 3-
and 6-month SPIs show that in most of the drought years
the central-western, north-western and northern areas had
Figure 6. Spatial distribution of 3-month SPI computed for the month of
an SPI less than
1Ð0. May in the four worst drought years after Bangladesh independence

Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
 DROUGHTS OF BANGLADESH
Figure 7. Spatial distribution of 6-month SPI computed for the month of
November in the four worst drought years after Bangladesh independence
The area potentially liable to suffer drought at different
time steps is identified on the basis of their occurrences.
The percentage of drought occurrences is computed by
taking the ratio of drought occurrences in each time step
to the total drought occurrences in the same time step and
drought category (McKee et al., 1993). The percentage of
occurrences of moderate, severe and very severe droughts
are shown in Figures 8, 9 and 10, respectively. In each
figure, the upper map shows the drought for a 3-month
time step and the lower one shows the drought for a
6-month time step.
The spatial distribution of moderate droughts
(Figure 8a) indicates that they tend to occur in the south-
eastern part of the area at the 3-month time step. The
south-western and northern parts experience moderate
drought with lower frequencies at the 3-month time step.
As the time step increases to 6 months (Figure 8b), the
high drought potential zone is found to shift to the south-
western part of the area. The northern part has less poten-
tial for moderate drought at the 6-month time-step.
The distribution of severe droughts (Figure 9a) shows a
completely different pattern from the moderate drought.
Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
2241
The north-western part of the area is found to be the
most likely to suffer severe drought at the 3-month time
step. With increase in the time step from 3 months to
6 months, the area with potentially high occurrence is
found to expand from the north-western to the northern
part of the area (Figure 9b). The central part of the area
is also found to have some potential for severe drought
at both 3- and 6-month time steps. The percentage
occurrence of droughts in these categories is less in the
southern coastal parts.
Figure 10a shows that very severe droughts at the 3-
month time step occur in the northern part of the area with
high percentage and in the western part with moderate
percentage. The high drought occurrence area is found
to expand to the north-western part as the time step is
increased from 3 months to 6 months (Figure 10b). The
central part of the area is found to have less potential
for very severe drought in both 3- and 6-month time
steps.
The analysis of drought occurrences for different
categories and time-steps indicates that northern and
north-western parts of the country are most vulnerable
to severe and very severe droughts. Moderate drought
occurrences are higher in the southern part of the country
compared to other parts. The central part of the study
area has moderate potential for both moderate and severe
droughts, but less potential for very severe droughts.
Critical rainfall analysis
Critical or threshold rainfall determines the minimum
moisture input required for non-drought conditions in
various time steps. As the SPI values below zero indicate
a deficit in rainfall, rainfall corresponding to zero SPI
is considered the critical value in this present research
(Sonmez et al., 2005). The critical rainfall values are
computed for each station and then used to map its spatial
distribution. The distribution of rainfall required during
the monsoon (June to November) and dry (December
to May) months in the study area for normal conditions
are shown in Figure 11a and b, respectively. The figure
shows that a minimum of 1550 mm monsoon rainfall
is required for normal conditions in the northern part of
Bangladesh, which is one of the most drought-prone areas
of the country. The north-western and central-western
parts require a minimum of 1250 mm monsoon rainfall
for normal conditions. Figure 11b shows that in the north-
western part of the area, rainfall less than 225 mm during
the months of December to May may cause a rainfall
deficit. The required rainfall varies from 225 mm to more
than 375 mm in the northern part of the country during
this time period.
Average rainfall during rainy and dry months over the
study area for the last 39 years is shown in Figure 12a
and b, respectively. Figure 12a shows that average mon-
soon rainfall varies between 1238 mm in the central-
western part and more than 1551 mm in the northern and
southern parts. The dry months rainfall varies between
251 mm in the north-west and more than 426 mm in
Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
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2242 S. SHAHID

Figure 8. Moderate drought occurrences at (a) 3-month and (b) 6-month time steps

Figure 9. Severe drought occurrences at (a) 3-month and (b) 6-month time steps

Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
 DROUGHTS OF BANGLADESH 2243

Figure 10. Very severe drought occurrences at (a) 3-month and (b) 6-month time steps

Figure 11. Maps showing spatial distribution of minimum (a) monsoon rainfall; and (b) dry months rainfall required to avoid precipitation deficit in
the study area

Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
2244 S. SHAHID

Figure 12. Maps showing spatial distribution of average (a) monsoon; and (b) dry months rainfall for the 39 years 1961– 1999 over the study area

Figure 13. Maps showing the spatial distribution of rainfall reliability during (a) monsoon; (b) dry months in the study area

the eastern part of the area (Figure 12b). This is higher during the monsoon months (Figure 13a) and dry months
than the minimum rainfall required for normal condition (Figure 13b) shows that the rainfall is highly variable
in the area. However, reliability analysis of rainfall in some parts of the area. The variation in monsoon

Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
 DROUGHTS OF BANGLADESH 2245

rainfall is about 30% and in non-monsoon rainfall is

Areal Average
more than 50% of the average rainfall in north-western

0Ð04
and central-western parts of the area. The rainfall vari-

0
ability in the northern part is comparatively less dur-
ing dry months, but is high (between 28% and 30%)
during the monsoon. As critical rainfall values in the
Satkhira north-western part of the area are very near to the

0Ð06

0Ð04
average rainfall of the area and the year to year vari-
ation of rainfall in the area is very high, it can be
assumed that the area is very vulnerable to future severe
Rangpur

droughts.
1Ð44
0Ð3Ł

Annual trend of rainfall

Rajshahi

0Ð49

0Ð11

The trend in annual rainfall over the study area is

calculated using a linear regression method to visualize
the future hydrological conditions in the area. Rainfall
data for the 39 years 1961–1999 is used for this purpose.
Khulna

2Ð03

0Ð17

As the time series of rainfall is not very long, the

use of linear regression to estimate time trends may be
Table II. Trend of annual mean rainfall in different stations

questionable. Therefore, Kendall-tau trend estimation is

also used to compare with the result obtained from linear
Khepupara

regression. The field significance of the time trends has

0Ð38ŁŁ
3Ð49

also been assessed using a Mann–Kendall test. The result

obtained is shown in Table II. The study shows that there
is no significant change in annual areal rainfall in the
Jessore

study area. However, at local scale, significant increase

0Ð04

0Ð02

in rainfall is observed at three stations, one is the coastal

area (Khepupara) and the other two are in the northern
part of Bangladesh (Rangpur and Dinajpur). Among the
Ishurdi

1Ð88

0Ð17

remaining 11 stations, 10 show a negative change in

rainfall, but these are not statistically significant.
The spatial distribution of rainfall trend over the study
area is shown in Figure 14. Plus (C) signs in the figure
Faridpur

1Ð45

0Ð16

mean an increase in annual rainfall, minus signs (
)

indicate a decrease in annual rainfall and zero (0) means
no observable change in annual rainfall during the time
period 1961–1999. The figure shows that rainfall has
Dinajpur

0Ð28Ł

declined in the central part of the study area. Maximum

2Ð14

declination of rainfall is found to occur at a rate of

1Ð88 mm year
1 in Ishurdi near the central-western
part of the study area. Between the two most drought
Bogra

0Ð12
0Ð06

vulnerable areas, a significant increase in rainfall is

observed in the northern part and no change in rainfall is
observed in the north-western part of the study area.
ŁŁ Trend is significant at the 0Ð01 level (2-tailed).
Ł Trend is significant at the 0Ð05 level (2-tailed).
Bhola

1Ð79

0Ð2

Table III. El Niño years and drought years of Bangladesh

Barishal

0Ð39

0Ð08

El Niño year Drought year

1962–63 1963
1965–66 1966, 1968
Linear Regression

1972–73 1973
1977–78 1977, 1979
Kendall-Tau

1982–83 1982
1987–88 1989
1991–93 1992
1994–95 1994–1995

Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
2246 S. SHAHID

Satkhira
Drought and ENSO phenomena relationship

Areal Average

0Ð14
0Ð15
A relationship between drought in Bangladesh and El

0Ð28

0Ð22
Nino has been observed. El Nino years and drought years
in Bangladesh are compared in Table III. The relationship
between the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) and rainfall

Rangpur

0Ð31

0Ð16
and SPI in the study area is estimated using a two-
Satkhira

sided Pearson and Spearman correlation test. Pearson

0Ð03
0Ð03

and Spearman correlation coefficients of yearly means

of Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) with yearly means of
Rajshahi precipitation are
0Ð28 and
0Ð22, respectively, for the

0Ð05

0Ð05
Rangpur

study area. However, the correlations are not statistically

0Ð10

0Ð11

significant. The negative correlation between MEI and

yearly means of precipitation suggests that precipitation
decreases when MEI increases. MEI is also correlated
with precipitation at each station in the study area.
Khulna
Rajshahi

0Ð09

0Ð07

0Ð13

0Ð13

Significant negative correlation between precipitation and

Table IV. Correlation of the MEI and precipitation yearly means for different stations

MEI is found in three stations. Table IV shows the

correlation matrix of the MEI and precipitation yearly
Table V. Correlation of the MEI and SPI yearly means for different stations

means for each station.

Khepupara
Khulna

0Ð22

0Ð27

Correlation between MEI and SPI for the study area

0Ð14
0Ð13

is also investigated. No significant correlation between

yearly means of MEI and SPI is found for the study area.
At local scale statistically significant negative correlation
Khepupara

between yearly means of MEI and SPI is found in two

0Ð05
0Ð01

Jessore

stations. The correlation matrix of the MEI and SPI yearly

0Ð28
0Ð16

means for each station is shown in Table V.

Jessore

0Ð07

0Ð02

CONCLUSIONS
Ishurdi

0Ð03

0Ð06

The spatial and temporal characteristics of meteorolog-

ical droughts in the western part of Bangladesh have
Ishurdi

been studied by reconstructing historical occurrences of

0Ð22

0Ð28

drought for multiple time steps and drought categories

Faridpur

0Ð47

0Ð42

by employing an SPI approach. The major outcome of

the study is the production of a drought potential map of
Faridpur

the western part of Bangladesh. Drought potential map-

0Ð48

0Ð42

ping is one of the major steps in drought mitigation and

Dinajpur

planning. The study reveals that north and north-western

0Ð42

0Ð40

areas are most likely to suffer drought. It is observed that

Dinajpur

there is no relation between the rainfall distribution and

0Ð44

0Ð38

Numbers in bold means statistically significant at the 0Ð05 level.

Numbers in bold means statistically significant at the 0Ð05 level.

drought potential zones. The northern region normally

receives more than the average rainfall of the study area,
Bogra

0Ð06

0Ð04

but the area has a higher potential for drought. The max-
imum rainfall demand in this area is also high compared
Bogra

0Ð12

0Ð10

to other drought-prone areas. It is hoped that the study

will assist in guiding the operational responses in drought
Bhola

0Ð02

0Ð20

risk reduction in Bangladesh.

Bhola

0Ð43

0Ð39

A significant negative relation between precipitation

deficit and MEI is found for four stations in the
study area. Significant negative relation is also observed
Barishal

between SPI and MEI at two stations. Therefore, infor-

0Ð11

0Ð12
Barishal

0Ð47

0Ð41

mation on the ENSO could be useful for Bangladesh for

drought management. The trend analysis in annual mean
rainfall in the western part of Bangladesh shows that there
is no change in average precipitation. Rainfall is found to
Spearman

Spearman

change significantly at local scale at some stations. With

Pearson

Pearson

an average mean annual rainfall very near to the critical

rainfall, high rainfall variability and no significant change
Ł

Copyright  2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Hydrol. Process. 22, 2235– 2247 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/hyp
 DROUGHTS OF BANGLADESH
Figure 14. Map showing the spatial distribution of rainfall trend com-
puted from rainfall data for the 39 years 1961– 1999
in annual rainfall, the north-western part of Bangladesh
is expected to experience more severe droughts in the
future.
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