Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Hydrology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol

Spatial and temporal soil moisture and drought variability in the Upper
Colorado River Basin
Chunling Tang a, Thomas C. Piechota b,*
a
b

Department of Geosciences, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209-8072, USA

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 451087, Las Vegas, NV 89154-1087, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 12 June 2009
Accepted 28 September 2009
This manuscript was handled by K.
Georgakakos, Editor-in-Chief, with the
assistance of V. Lakshmi, Associate Editor
Keywords:
Drought
Soil moisture
Wavelet analysis and wavelet coherency
Spatial
Temporal
Upper Colorado River Basin

s u m m a r y
This research investigates the interannual variability of soil moisture as related to large-scale climate variability and also evaluates the spatial and temporal variability of modeled deep layer (40140 cm) soil
moisture in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB). A three layers hydrological model VIC-3L (Variable
Inltration Capacity Model 3 layers) was used to generate soil moisture in the UCRB over a 50-year period. By using wavelet analysis, deep layer soil moisture was compared to the Palmer Drought Severity
Index (PDSI), precipitation, and streamow to determine whether deep soil moisture is an indicator of
climate extremes. Wavelet and coherency analysis for the UCRB indicated a strong relationship between
the PDSI, climate variability and the deep soil moisture. The spatial variability of soil moisture during
drought, normal, and wet years was analyzed by using map analysis. Distinct regions showing higher vulnerability to drought and wet conditions were identied in the spatial analysis. The temporal variation in
soil moisture was performed by utilizing map analysis in pre-drought, drought, and post-drought years
for four drought events, 19531956, 19591964, 19741977, and 19881992. Less than 50% of the basin
had dry conditions (soil moisture anomaly below 10 mm) for the pre-drought years. Soil moisture
anomalies were lower than 10 mm for more than 50% of the basin in 15 out of 19 drought years. Generally, droughts did not end until the average soil moisture anomalies increased to positive values for two
consecutive years.
2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Droughts are characterized by their severity (average water
deciency), magnitude (cumulative water deciency) and duration. Denitions vary for the different types of drought: agricultural, hydrologic, meteorological, and socioeconomic (Dracup
et al., 1980). Several drought indices have been dened for characterization of drought including the use of soil moisture.
Soil moisture is a signicant hydrological variable related to
oods and droughts and plays an important role in the process of
converting precipitation into runoff and groundwater storage. A
soil moisture decit results in more inltration and little runoff
when followed by precipitation. However, high soil moisture results in overland runoff and possible ooding during intense precipitation. In addition, high soil moisture promotes vegetation
growth in the summer and this leads to high evapotranspiration.
Therefore, soil moisture controls the interaction of the land with
the atmosphere.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 702 895 4412; fax: +1 702 895 5464/3936.
E-mail addresses: thomas.piechota@unlv.edu, piechota@ce.unlv.edu (T.C. Piechota).
0022-1694/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.09.052

The inuence of soil moisture on climate variability has received attention in recent years. Higher soil moisture may result
in higher evaporation and precipitation, and an accurate soil moisture representation can enhance precipitation predictability (Koster et al., 2000). Soil moisture information also has potential to
improve seasonal precipitation prediction (Dirmeyer and Brubaker,
1999). Timbal and McAvaney (2001) suggested that a high interannual variability of soil moisture could potentially play a role in
affecting Australian seasonal climate forecasts, and Reichle and
Koster (2003) found that soil moisture could be important for seasonal prediction of mid-latitude summer precipitation. Huang et al.
(1996) identied that precipitation inuenced soil moisture anomalies and the soil moisture had greater persistence during periods
of low precipitation. Soil moisture has been noted as an indicator
of agricultural potential and available water storage, which reected recent precipitation and antecedent conditions (Keyantash
and Dracup, 2002). Trenberth and Branstator (1992) stated that
there are three main contributors to drought: land and sea surface
temperature, atmospheric circulation, and soil moisture. Changes
of each of these parameters were amplied to produce climate extremes such as ood or drought.
Recent research has focused on the relationship between soil
moisture and the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) (Palmer,

C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

1965), which is the most widely used index of meteorological

drought in the United States. Shefeld et al. (2004) identied that
the Variable Inltration Capacity (VIC) drought index based on soil
moisture showed good correlation with the PDSI in the United
States. In evaluating drought in East Hungary, Makra et al. (2005)
dened the PDSI as an indicator of soil moisture and this was consistent with the study of Szep et al. (2005) that the PDSI is significantly related to soil moisture in East Hungary. Soil Moisture
Decit Index (SMDI) was developed by Narasimhan and Srinivasan
(2005). A recent study by Lakshmi et al. (2004) acknowledged that
the deep layer soil moisture anomaly was a good drought indicator
in the Mississippi River Basin. Therefore, efforts should be made
through relating soil moisture with PDSI and climate variabilities,
to evaluate the potential capability of soil moisture to be a drought
indicator.
Soil moisture interacts with the atmosphere through surface
energy and water balances. Poveda and Mesa (1997) analyzed soil
moisture, ENSO (El Nio-Southern Oscillation), and precipitation in
Colombia and demonstrated that soil moisture accounted for part
of the precipitation reduction in tropical South America through
reduction in evapotranspiration and feedback mechanisms. Several
studies have looked at the temporal variability of soil moisture. Hu
et al. (1997) examined the temporal function of soil moisture, and
suggested that it was related to inltration, cloud coverage, precipitation, and drainage. In evaluating water resources in small catchments, soil moisture varied spatially due to water routing
processes, vegetation, and soil types (Hu et al., 1997). To fully
understand the changing dominance of soil moisture in different
regions, its spatial characteristics need to be considered along with
the temporal characteristics. The study presented seeks to evaluate
both the spatial and temporal aspects of soil moisture in extreme
climate conditions.
There are three main objectives in this study. The rst objective
is to generate large-scale, long-term, high-resolution soil moisture
based on model calibration and model verication in the UCRB.
Modeling soil moisture is important because the lack of consistent
high-resolution, large-scale, long-term modeling soil moisture has
prevented certain research, such as the linkages of the soil moisture with climate variability. The second objective is to examine
soil moisture as a drought indicator with the main contribution
being the use of a two-dimensional (time and frequency) wavelet
analysis statistical tool in correlating soil moisture with climate
variabilities. The third objective is to improve the understanding
of temporal and spatial variations of soil moisture as related to
droughts. Soil moisture varies both temporally and spatially in
response to climate processes over a variety of scales. However,
the relative importance of the temporal and spatial soil moisture
inuence on the climate extremes (i.e. droughts) is still poorly
understood. Therefore, the comprehensive investigation of spatial
and temporal soil moisture on drought will be a signicant
contribution.
To attain the research goals, a 1/8 spatial resolution and a temporal daily time step soil moisture datasets were generated from
the Variable Inltration Capacity Model 3 layers (VIC-3L). Then
the modeled soil moisture as a drought indicator was evaluated
by comparing it with the climate variabilities for the UCRB. Spatial
variability of soil moisture was evaluated by map analysis method.
Furthermore, the temporal variability of soil moisture was evaluated by investigating the soil moisture anomalies during predrought, drought, and post-drought years.

Study area
The study area is the UCRB (Fig. 1), which provides water supply, ood control and hydropower to a large area of the southwest

123

United States. The UCRB drains an area of more than 279,720 km2
in seven states and generates water for 26 million people within
the basin states and adjoining areas. The elevation, land cover,
and soil type maps of the UCRB are presented in Fig. 2. The average
elevation of the UCRB is about 2200 ft. (Fig. 2a). About 40% of the
UCRB is covered by barren or sparsely vegetable (Fig. 2b). Five
main soil types: loam clay, loam sand, sandy loam, silty clay, and
sand are in the UCRB (Fig. 2c). The current drought in the Colorado
River Basin started in 2000 and has resulted in an accumulative
streamow decit of 11 km3 or approximately two years of average streamow (Piechota et al., 2004). The current drought, combined with an increased water supply demand, has severely
affected the storage of the major reservoirs at the Colorado River.
Data
Soil moisture data
In the United States, the Illinois State Water Survey Department
started to observe soil moisture in the 1980s. Approximately 30
stations of observed soil moisture data are available in the United
States and most stations are located in Illinois and Iowa (Robock et
al., 2000). Observed soil moisture data are also available from the
Global Soil Moisture Data Bank (http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/
soil_moisture). However, no observed long-term soil moisture is
available in the UCRB. The simulated soil moisture from hydrological models has been widely used because of the lack of large-scale
and long-term observations of soil moisture. Soil moisture data
used in this study were generated from the VIC-3L model (see section Development of soil moisture dataset).
The PDSI data
The PDSI was used to represent the severity of dry and wet conditions, based on temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture data
(Palmer, 1965). The range of the PDSI values is from 4 to +4,
which was dened by Palmer (1965) according to a study area in
central Iowa and western Kansas. Positive and negative PDSI values
indicate wet and dry conditions. The gridded PDSI data is available
from the National Climate Data Center of record from 1900 to present (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncds.html). Monthly PDSI values for a 50-year span (19502000) of the UCRB were used in
this study.
Method
The VIC-3L model (Liang et al., 1994; Todini, 1996) was utilized
to simulate soil moisture at a daily time step with a 1/8 spatial
resolution for the period 19502000 in the UCRB. Then, the relationships between soil moisture and climate variability was evaluated by wavelet method. The spatial variability of soil moisture
during drought, normal, and wet years was investigated by using
map analysis method. Finally, the role of the temporal variability
of soil moisture during the initiation, persistence, and termination
of drought was evaluated by map analysis. A detailed description
of these methods follows.
Development of soil moisture dataset
The VIC-3L model description
The VIC-3L model is a macro-scale water and energy balance
model, based on the Xinnan Jiang Model (Zhao et al., 1980). The
distinguishing features of the VIC-3L model include the sub grid
variability in soil moisture, land surface vegetation, precipitation,
and topography in use of the elevation band. The VIC-3L model

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Fig. 1. The UCRB with ve streamow stations from the USGS and ve climate divisions from the NOAA.

had been successfully applied over many large river basins with
reasonable results (Abdulla et al., 1996). The VIC-3L model is based
on the water balance equation:

DS p  ET  R  D

where DS is the rate of the change of storage, p the precipitation, ET

the evapotranspiration, R the surface runoff, and D is the subsurface
runoff.
The VIC-3L model consists of three soil layers, 10 cm for layer 1,
30 cm for layer 2, and 100 cm for layer 3. Surface runoff is gener-

ated in the upper two layers by a variable inltration curve, and

baseow is produced in the bottom layer (Todini, 1996). The VIC3L model allows different types of vegetation and land cover. The
surface land cover types are described by n = 1, 2, 3, . . . N, N + 1
(N represents different types of vegetation, and N + 1 represents
bare soil). Land cover types are characterized by their Leaf Area Index (LAI), canopy resistance, root fraction depth, and soil properties (Liang et al., 1994).
The VIC-3L model typically runs at spatial resolutions varying
from 1/8 to 2, temporal resolutions from monthly to daily time

C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

125

Fig. 2. Geographical characteristics of the UCRB: (a) elevation map; (b) land cover map; and (c) soil type map.

steps, and is forced by meteorological data, soil data, and vegetation data. The model is coupled to a routing model, which generates streamow and transports grid cell surface runoff and
baseow produced by the VIC-3L model to the outlet of that grid
cell, and then into the river system (Wood et al., 1997). A more
thorough description of the model is given in Liang et al. (1994)
and Lohmann et al. (1998).
For soil moisture, Nijssen et al. (2001) reported a good comparison between the simulated soil moisture by the VIC-3L and the observed soil moisture in central Illinois and in central Eurasia.
Another study by Maurer et al. (2001) demonstrated that the
VIC-3L modeled soil moisture had a higher persistence than the
NCEP (National Center for Environmental Prediction) reanalysis
data for the entire Mississippi River Basins. Stephen et al. (2008)
compared the VIC-3L modeled soil moisture with observed soil
moisture in the Lower Colorado River Basin and show that the
two soil moisture datasets match well.
The VIC-3L model calibration
Observed streamow. The model calibration was performed between observed streamow and simulated streamow. Streamow
stations were identied from the National Water Information System Web (NWISWeb) Data retrieval (http://waterdata.usgs.gov/
nwis/) of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) (Slack et al.,
1993) and monthly average ow rate were retrieved. There are
several reasons for calibration of streamow rather than soil mois-

ture. First, long-term observed soil moisture is not available in the

UCRB. Second, the output of the VIC-3L model are the main input
sets of the routing model, so calibration of the streamow which
is the output of the routing model indirectly calibrates the VIC3L model. Third, the soil moisture parameter is one of the most
sensitive parameters in the calibration of the streamow. Streamow is a spatially integrated response of hydrologic processes
within a basin, which is important for assessing land surface
schemes at large spatial scales. The monthly streamow over a
50-year period (19502000) for ve stations in the UCRB (Fig. 1)
(Fall Creek, Piney River, Cisco, Green River, and Lees Ferry) were
used for calibration.
Selection of sensitive parameters. The calibration of the VIC-3L model is usually performed by adjusting ve parameters (Wood et al.,
1997): (a) the maximum baseow that can occur from the third
soil layer (in mm/day) (Dsmax); (b) the fraction of Dsmax where
non-linear (rapidly increasing) baseow begins (Ds); (c) the fraction of the maximum soil moisture (of the lowest soil layer) where
non-linear baseow occurs (Wsmax); (d) the inltration parameter
(binf); and (e) the depth of the second soil layer (d2). Since the maximum velocity of baseow (Dsmax) depends on hydraulic conductivity, which can be estimated using the saturated hydraulic
conductivity multiplied by the slope of the grid, the fraction of
maximum soil moisture content of the third layer (Wsmax) is analogous to Ds (Liang et al., 1994; Wood et al., 1997). These three

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C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

parameters can be derived from soil textural information, so, the

parameters were used with minor adjustment during the calibration in this research. Consequently, the inltration parameter (binf),
and the thickness of the second soil layer (d2) were treated as the
primary calibration parameters (Wood et al., 1997; Su et al., 2005).
These two parameters were chosen as the primary calibration
parameters for several reasons. First, sensitivity analysis showed
that binf and d2 were the most sensitive calibration parameters.
Second, a change in the thickness of the second layer effects not
only the hydraulic conductivity, but also the maximum storage
available in the second layer and the water available for transpiration. The plant roots can draw water only from the top two soil layers and the baseow was generated only from the third layer in the
VIC-3L model. As a result, the ux of water from the second layer
into the third layer determines how much baseow will occur.
Of the total 50-year record, a 30-year period (19712000) was
utilized for the calibration process, and a 20-year data (1950
1970) was used for validation. Model validation applied the VIC3L model without changing the calibration parameters (binf, d2) values obtained from calibration. The root mean squared error (RMSE)
and linear correlation coefcient (r) were the two calibration
criteria.

Model verication
The model verication was performed by comparing soil moisture calculated from the VIC-3L model with that from the Distributed Modeling Intercomparison Project (DMIP) of the CPC (Climate
Prediction Center) for ve Climate Divisions (33, 298, 299, 300, and
337) (Fig. 1) in the UCRB. Soil moisture produced by the CPC has
been widely used in climate studies in recent years. The verication is difcult to perform because different soil layer depths and
different soil moisture reservoir sizes were utilized in the CPC
and the VIC-3L model. The CPC dened the maximum soil moisture
capacity as 760 mm (Refsgaard, 1997) and the soil was set to only
one layer with 1.6 m depth. In contrast, the maximum soil moisture in the VIC-3L model was equal to the porosity of the soil,
and soil moisture storage expressed as a fraction of eld capacity.
Soil was separated into three layers with a total 1.4 m depth in the
VIC-3L model rather than 1.6 m in the CPC. Because of these differences, the verication was carried out by a comparison of the soil
moisture anomaly patterns rather than the absolute storage values.
The verication relied upon the correlation between the two
datasets:

rjk

COV jk
Sj Sk

Fig. 3. Monthly observed and simulated streamow for: (a) Fall Creek station, (b) Piney River station, (c) Green River station, (d) Cisco station, and (e) Lees Ferry station.

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C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

where Sj and Sk are the standard deviations of variable j and k,

respectively, and COVjk is the correlation between j and k.
To calculate the covariance between the two soil moisture datasets, the corrected sum of products (SP) which shows the sum of
squares of variables is dened by:

SPjk

n
X
X ij  X j Y ik  Y k

periodic signals within the series and how this amplitude varies
with time is provided by wavelet analysis.
The continuous wavelets transform Wn of a discrete sequence of
observations xn is dened as the convolution of xn with a scale s
and wavelet w(x):

W xn s

n0

i1

where j is the soil moisture from the VIC-3L model, k is the soil
moisture from the CPC. Xij is the ith measurement of variable j,
and Yik is the ith measurement of variable k. X j is the mean of variable j, and Y k is the mean of variable k.
The covariance was then calculated based on SP:

COV jk

SPjk
n

n1

N 1
X

Pn

P
P
 ni1 X ij ni1 Y ik
nn  1

i1 X ij Y ik

Comparison of time series

The next step was to compare soil moisture with other drought
indicators by using wavelet analysis. Methods used to analyze signals for time variation are standard techniques such as Fourier and
wavelet analysis. The main problem with the Fourier transform is
no time localization of the frequencies are present in the signal
(Torrence and Webster, 1999). Wavelet analysis attempts to solve
this problem by decomposing a time series into time/frequency
space simultaneously. Information on both the amplitude of any

xn 0 w 

n0  ndt
s


5

where n is the localized time index, s is the wavelet scale, dt is the

sampling period, N is the number of points in the time series, and
the asterisk indicates the complex conjugate. The wavelet transforms Wn(s), at time index n, scale s and with a constant time interval were developed (Torrence and Webster, 1999) for all the given
time series (soil moisture of layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3, PDSI, precipitation, and streamow).
The similarity between the different time series was evaluated
by using wavelet coherency, which was used to identify frequency
bands and time intervals where two time series were related (Torrence and Webster, 1999). The wavelet coherency Rn is dened as:

R2n s

2
jhs1 W XY
n Sij

hs1 jW Xn sj2 ihs1 jW Yn sj2 i

where h i indicates smoothing in both time and scale, W Xn s and

W Yn s are the wavelet transforms of two time series X and Y.
W XY
n s is the cross-wavelet spectrum of X and Y which is dened as:


X
X
W XY
n s W n sW n s

Fig. 4. Comparison of soil moisture anomaly simulated from the VIC-3L model and from the CPC.

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C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

where () means the complex conjugate. The intent of the wavelet
coherency analysis is to determine how well soil moisture represents hydrological drought in the UCRB.

moisture anomaly greater than 10 mm). The percentages of the basin in different conditions were calculated for pre-drought,
drought, and post-drought years.

Spatial variability of soil moisture during droughts

Results

To evaluate the spatial variability of soil moisture, map analysis

was performed on the 50 year period which was divided into
drought, normal, and wet years. In this study, the PDSI value of
1 was selected as the threshold. Drought was dened as the consecutive years during which the PDSI variable was continuously
below 1. The normal years were dened as the years with the
PDSI values between 1 and 1. The wet years were identied as
the PDSI greater than 1. This resulted in 19 drought, 14 normal,
and 17 wet years over the 50-year records which is consistent with
the study of Timilsena et al. (2006). Secondly, gridded yearly average soil moisture and soil moisture anomaly for the drought, normal, and wet years were calculated. Finally, maps displaying the
temporal and spatial variability of soil moisture were developed.

Calibration results
The results of the calibration are presented in Fig. 3, which compares the monthly modeled streamow with the observed streamow at Fall Creek, Piney River, Green River, Cisco, and Lees Ferry
stations from 1950 to 1960. The maximum error between these
data sets is less than 5% for the UCRB. The monthly hydrographs
closely match the observations, which indicates very low ows
during NovemberApril and high ows during MayOctober for
the ve stations. The model simulations capture the time of the
peak ows, but overestimate the ows in 1950, which could possibly be due to the initialization of the model.
Soil moisture verication

Temporal variability of soil moisture during droughts

The CPC soil moisture datasets used for verication were generated from observed precipitation and temperature (Refsgaard,
1997). Model verication was carried out for each Climate Division
(Fig. 1) and the entire UCRB. Only the verication results of the
whole UCRB for period 19502000 were represented in Fig. 4.
The comparisons of the two soil moisture datasets demonstrated
similar results for the ve Climate Divisions as those for the whole
UCRB in Fig. 4a. A comparison revealed that the seasonal cycles in
soil moisture were well captured and the two models matched reasonably well. The soil moisture anomaly in the CPC tended to be
higher than that of the VIC-3L model for the period 19671972
and lower for the period 19771981. The VIC-3L model predicts

As discussed above, there are 19 drought years and four drought

events over a 50-year record. In general, two years before and after
the drought were chosen for the pre-drought and post-drought
analysis, so the soil moisture anomaly response before and after
a drought event could be evaluated. A total 19 drought years, 8
pre-drought years, and 8 post-drought years were evaluated in
the map analysis. Secondly, the areas were dened as in dry, normal, and wet conditions based on soil moisture anomalies, and
used the following classication scheme: dry condition (soil moisture anomaly below 10 mm), normal condition (soil moisture
anomaly between 10 mm and 10 mm), and wet condition (soil

soil mositure (mm)

200
160
120
80
40
0
1950

1955

1960

1965

Layer 1(0-10cm)

soil moisture (mm)

1970

1975
Time

1980

1985

Layer2(10-40cm)

1990

1995

2000

Layer3(40-140cm)

240
200
160
120
80
40
0
1950

1955

1960

soil moisture (298)

1965

1970

1975 1980
Time
soil moisture (300)

1985

1990

1995

2000

soil moisture (337)

Fig. 5. Modeled soil moisture for the UCRB: (a) 50-year monthly average soil moisture; (b) yearly average soil moisture of layer 3 for three Climate Divisions.

C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

soil moisture values 1.5% lower than the data from the CPC. Fig. 4b
presents the scatter and correlation of the monthly soil moisture
anomalies from the CPC and the VIC-3L model. The scatter plot
illustrates a relatively high correlation of 0.82 between the CPC
and the VIC-3L soil moisture anomalies. The correlations for the
ve Climate Divisions (not shown) were 0.80, 0.78, 0.81, 0.83,
and 0.83, respectively.
Soil moisture in the UCRB
The VIC-3L model soil moisture is presented in Fig. 5. The daily
time scale modeled soil moisture of layer 1, layer 2, and layer 3 was
averaged to monthly values and displayed in Fig. 5a. The soil moisture of layer 1 shows a higher frequency of variation and this may
be attributed to the structure of the VIC-3L model where layer 1
soil responds to precipitation immediately and has a smaller inltration capacity, in comparison with the layer 2 and layer 3 soil.
The highest amplitudes variation with lowest frequencies occurred

129

in the layer 3. This suggests that extreme climate occurs at longer

time scales and the soil storage is higher in the deeper soil layer.
Soil moisture data varied from 12.9 mm to 23.4 mm for the layer
1, 37.2 mm to 70.5 mm for the layer 2, and 106.0 mm to
216.7 mm for the layer 3. Soil moisture values for the layer 2 and
layer 3 show some drastic reduction for certain drought years,
for example, 19641966 and in the late 1970s. The maximum soil
moisture decit in layer 3 occurred during the late 1990s, which
provides insight to drought characterization, coincided with the
current drought studied by Piechota et al. (2004).
The variation of the yearly averaged soil moisture was studied
for the ve Climate Divisions, however, only the results of three
Climate Divisions (298, 300, and 337) were presented in Fig. 5b.
High soil moisture occurred from 1982 to 1983; this may due to
wet conditions derived by the El Nio event. All Climate Divisions
show a decrease in soil moisture for several periods, for instant, the
year 1956 and 1963, the late 1970s and the 1980s, and the late
1990s.

Fig. 6. Wavelet power spectrum of the six time series: (a) soil moisture of layer 1, (b) soil moisture of layer 2, (c) soil moisture of layer 3, (d) the PDSI, (e) streamow, and (f)
precipitation. The scale of the power spectrum is a log2 representation of the power spectrum value.

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C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

Comparison of soil moisture and drought indicators

Wavelet analysis was conducted on six time series: soil moisture of layer 1, soil moisture of layer 2, soil moisture of layer 3,
streamow at Lees Ferry, precipitation, and the PDSI in the UCRB.
The wavelet power spectrum for these six time series are presented in Fig. 6, which shows the temporal uctuation of the variables over the entire 50-year period. For soil moisture of layer 1,
layer 2, and layer 3 (Fig. 6ac), the power is widely distributed,
with peaks in the 1-year, 48 year and the 816 year bands. The
1-year frequency band in the soil moisture of layer 1 coincides
with the annual cycle precipitation (Fig. 6f). The wavelet results
of the PDSI display a dominant feature of a high spectrum for the
period of 48 year, representing the periodicity of 48 years frequency cycle coincides with El Nio events. Variance changes similar to the soil moisture are found in the PDSI (Fig. 6d), and
streamow (Fig. 6e) over the 48 year and the 816 year bands
which means that the soil moisture is closely linked to the PDSI
and streamow. Over the entire range of frequencies and time
periods, the most similar wavelet power spectrums are for soil
moisture of layer 3 and the PDSI. There is a signicant covariance
between them in the 48 year band. This is expected since the PDSI
is partially computed based on soil moisture values. Furthermore,
Lakshmi et al. (2004) found similar results for the Mississippi River
Basin.
To further investigate the similarities of the six time series,
wavelet coherency was performed between all of the time series.
Fig. 7 depicts the wavelet coherency of soil moisture of layer 1 with
the PDSI (Fig. 7a), soil moisture of layer 2 with the PDSI (Fig. 7b),
and soil moisture of layer 3 with the PDSI (Fig. 7c). The wavelet
coherency between soil moisture of layer 1 and the PDSI is greater
than 0.8 for most times in the 12 year band, and it exceeds 0.85
during the intervals from 1965 to 1980. The coherency between
soil moisture of layer 2 and the PDSI demonstrates high values
for in the 24 year band and in the 48 year band. The soil moisture of layer 3 and the PDSI identify signicant coherency in the
48 year band and the 816 year band, with relatively low coherency outside of these periods, which indicates that the soil moisture is strongly correlated to the PDSI at the similar frequency
patterns as the El Nio (every 37 years). The changes in the PDSI
and soil moisture of layer 3 appear with high coherency from 1955
to 1985.
Table 1 summarizes the coherency between the six time series
of 95% signicant level. Similar to the comparisons made in Fig. 7,
the coherence between the soil moisture of layer 1 and the soil
moisture of layer 2 is 0.9. This represents the high amount of interow between these two soil layers. The PDSI and the soil moisture
of layer 3 are coherent at 0.88. This suggests that the soil moisture
of layer 3 could be utilized as an indicator of extreme climate conditions (e.g., droughts and oods). Lastly, precipitation and the soil
moisture of layer 3 have a moderate coherency (0.85) that further
highlights the usefulness of the soil moisture of layer 3 as an indicator of hydroclimatic conditions. The coherency between precipitation and the soil moisture of layer 1, precipitation and the soil
moisture of layer 2 are 0.85 and 0.87, respectively. This may be
due to the quick response of the layer 1 and layer 2 soils to the
precipitation.

Fig. 7. Wavelet coherency between: (a) the PDSI and soil moisture of layer 1, (b) the
PDSI and soil moisture of layer 2, and (c) the PDSI and soil moisture of layer 3.

Table 1
Coherency between the six time series: soil moisture of layer 1, soil moisture of layer
2, soil moisture of layer 3, the PDSI, precipitation, and streamow.
Coherency (95%
signicant)

Soil moisture
layer 1

Soil moisture
layer 2

Soil moisture
layer 3

Soil moisture layer 1

Soil moisture layer 2
Soil moisture layer 3
PDSI
Streamow
Precipitation

0.9
0.82
0.84
0.83
0.85

0.87
0.86
0.85
0.87

0.88
0.87
0.86

Spatial variability of soil moisture

Fig. 8 represents soil moisture maps, displaying the 50-year
average gridded soil moisture (Fig. 8a), the average soil moisture
anomaly for the drought years (Fig. 8b), the normal years
(Fig. 8c), and the wet years (Fig. 8d). There were six regions with
low soil moisture in Fig. 8a, four of them, regions 14, were located
in the western-central UCRB. These regions are mostly located in

the Colorado plateau with barren or sparse vegetation (Fig. 2b). Region 1 had the lowest average soil moisture, where the average soil
moisture was below 20 mm. Another two regions, regions 5 and 6,
with lower soil moisture, were identied in the lower portion of
the basin, with barren or sparse vegetation (Fig. 2b) and sandy soils
(Fig. 2c). The soil moisture in Climate Division 33 was higher than
that of other Divisions. The deep loam clay soil (Fig. 2c) is the major

C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

131

Fig. 8. Soil moisture and soil moisture anomaly maps for the UCRB: (a) Yearly average soil moisture over the 50-year periods; (b) average soil moisture anomaly for the
drought years; (c) average soil moisture anomaly for the normal years; and (d) average soil moisture anomaly for the wet years.

soil type and the needle leaf forest (Fig. 2b) comprises most part of
this Division. Three regions, regions 7, 8, and 9, with high soil moisture stand out. Region 7 was in the upper corner of the basin,
which is affected by snow melt. Regions 8 and 9, along the east
of the basin, are also affected by snow melt and have more vegetation, which leads to deep, dark, and rich soils.
Three maps (Fig. 8bd) shows the spatial patterns of soil moisture anomalies for different time periods: drought, normal, and
wet years. When taken together, the three maps display a spatial
picture of the changes of soil moisture anomalies for three different periods. Two regions, regions 1 and 2 (Fig. 8b), were identied
with lower soil moisture anomaly over the drought years. These regions are mostly covered by shrub land, and some areas are comprised of barren or sparse vegetation. The soil moisture anomaly
during the drought years ranged from 40.00 mm to 0 mm with
the averaged value of 12.7 mm.
The soil moisture anomaly displays a lower variation with lower amplitudes in the normal years (Fig. 8c), in which the average
soil moisture anomaly was 0.7 mm. Two distinct regions (Fig. 8d)
were identied as being sensitive to wet conditions. These two regions have a similar spatial concentration in comparison with the

signicant regions in the drought map (Fig. 8b). The response pattern of vegetation to drought and wet conditions may contribute to
the sensitivity of the soil moisture anomaly to the drought and wet
conditions.
Temporal variability of soil moisture
The soil moisture anomalies in three periods: pre-drought,
drought, and post-drought years for two drought periods were
identied and displayed in Figs. 9 and 10. Yearly average soil moisture anomalies for all four drought periods are showed in Table 2.
The percentages of regions in dry, normal, and wet conditions for
the pre-drought, drought, post-drought years are also displayed
in Table 2.
For the pre-drought year of 1951, over 66% of the UCRB experienced dry conditions (soil moisture anomaly below 10 mm) (See
Fig. 9). However, in 1952, only 16% of the basin had dry conditions.
Shefeld et al. (2004) noted that the surface was dry but the deeper
layer soil was wet in 1952 due to long-term variation in climate.
During the drought period (19531956), over 50% of the basin
had negative soil moisture anomalies. Lower soil moisture anom-

132

C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

aly might have played a major role in accelerating the widespread

of the drought. The average soil moisture anomaly reached a historical low value of 26.13 mm, and 83% of the basin had dry conditions. The sudden increase of the soil moisture anomalies and
decrease of dry regions in 1957 were due to the spring rain in

1957 (Shefeld et al., 2004). Less than 50% of the basin had negative soil moisture anomalies in two post-drought years (1957
and 1958). Average soil moisture anomalies increased to positive
values (Table 2) in 1957 and 1958, which signaled the end of the
four year drought.

Fig. 9. Soil moisture anomaly with the percentage of dry regions for the pre-drought, drought, and post-drought periods of the year 19511958.

C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

The drought of the years from 1988 to 1992 (Fig. 10cg) cost
more than $30 billion losses over the United States and has been
considered to be one of the worst disaster in US (Trenberth and
Branstator, 1992). The main factors in the development of this
drought were the combination of the sea surface temperature,
associated with the La Nia and the feedback of soil moisture with

133

precipitation (Trenberth and Branstator, 1992). The two predrought years had only 10% of the basin in dry conditions. However, more than 50% of the basin had dry conditions for three out
of the ve drought years. The average soil moisture anomalies
were negative for the ve drought years. The soil moisture began
to increase with wet conditions across the southern to the central

Fig. 10. Soil moisture anomaly with the percentage of dry regions for the pre-drought, drought, and post-drought periods of the year 19861994.

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C. Tang, T.C. Piechota / Journal of Hydrology 379 (2009) 122135

Table 2
Yearly Average soil moisture anomalies and percentage of basin had dry, normal, and
wet conditions for the pre-drought, drought, and post-drought for four drought
events.
Catalog

Years

19531956 drought
Pre-drought
1951
1952

ASMA (mm)

Normal (%)

Dry (%)

Wet (%)

7.85
8.66

22
40

66
16

12
44

Drought

1953
1954
1955
1956

14.15
16.78
19.08
26.13

36
32
24
15

58
65
73
83

6
3
3
2

Post-drought

1957
1958

0.45
8.8

34
41

43
14

23
45

19591964 drought
Pre-drought
1957
1958

0.45
8.8

34
41

43
14

23
45

Drought

1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964

17.04
6.3
8.22
0.66
16.56
21.98

28
48
44
45
29
18

69
39
47
26
65
80

3
13
9
29
6
2

Post-drought

1965
1966

0.45
5.68

46
50

28
14

26
36

18.96
6.24

44
26

39
10

17
64

19741977 drought
Pre-drought
1972
1973
Drought

1974
1975
1976
1977

12.86
11.39
18.14
37.25

35
43
25
10

57
52
73
90

8
5
2
0

Post-drought

1978
1979

6.32
23.37

47
23

20
8

33
69

19881992 drought
Pre-drought
1986
1987

17.01
12.61

32
39

10
10

57
51

Drought

1988
1989
1990
1991
1992

5.56
15.47
33.58
19.89
1.02

37
32
16
34
43

25
64
81
54
22

38
4
3
12
35

Post-drought

1993
1994

30.28
0.37

30
60

2
21

68
19

(0.82). The 50-year simulations over the UCRB indicated that the
VIC-3L model was able to produce the streamow and soil moisture quite well.
The simulated soil moisture was related to the PDSI, streamow, and precipitation by utilizing wavelet and coherency analysis
in the UCRB. The wavelet coherency analysis presented the relationships between six time series (soil moisture of layer 1, layer
2, and layer 3, the PDSI, streamow, and precipitation). The soil
moisture of layer 3 showed high correlation with the PDSI (0.88)
and this suggests that soil moisture may be a good drought indicator or a central variable for characterizing the hydrologic status for
the UCRB.
Then the study identied the spatial and temporal variability of
soil moisture in response to drought events using 50-year soil
moisture data (19502000) in the UCRB. In the spatial analysis, regions identied with more sensitivity to wet and dry conditions
were the western-central parts of the basin. In general, regions
with lower soil moisture were associated with the barren or sparse
vegetation and sandy soil. The regions with high soil moisture are
consistent with high vegetation density (needle leaf forest).
The temporal soil moisture conditions were evaluated by examining soil moisture in three different periods: pre-drought,
drought, and post-drought of four drought events. The results from
the 35 maps created for the temporal analysis demonstrated that
the average soil moisture anomalies were negative for the drought
periods. Also, the droughts did not end until two consecutive years
of positive soil moisture anomalies. For pre-drought years, soil
moisture anomalies decreased for two drought events (e.g.,
19741977, and 19881992). However, for another drought events
(e.g., 19531956, and 19591964), soil moisture did not have negative anomalies prior to the drought. This may be due to the sequence of the drought impacts identied by Andreadis and
Lettenmaier (2006). The sequence begins with meteorological
(precipitation) drought and as its duration increases, agricultural
(soil moisture) drought, and then hydrological (streamow)
drought follow. For drought periods, more than 50% of the basin
had dry conditions for 15 out of 19 drought years. For post-drought
periods, greater than 50% of the basin had normal and wet conditions, and the average soil moisture anomalies were positive for
all the 10 post-drought years, which indicate that only one year
with positive average soil moisture anomaly was not enough to
end a drought.
Acknowledgements

basin. Wet conditions prevailed in the UCRB with 68% classied as

wet conditions in 1993. Shefeld et al. (2004) also found the similar results that 70% of the UCRB had recovered from the severe
drought in 1993. Additionally, averaged soil moisture anomalies
were positive (Table 2), and less than 30% of the basin had dry conditions in the two post-drought years.

This research is supported by the US National Science Foundation award CMS-0239334 and Cooperative Agreement EPS0814372, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under award NA070AR4310228.
References

Conclusion
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