Water Resour Manage (2011) 25:10871101

DOI 10.1007/s11269-010-9665-1

A Water Balance Derived Drought Index for Pinios

River Basin, Greece

Lampros Vasiliades Athanasios Loukas

Nikos Liberis

Received: 14 November 2009 / Accepted: 3 May 2010 /

Published online: 19 May 2010
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract This study estimates hydrological drought characteristics using a water

balance derived drought index in Pinios river basin, Thessaly, Greece. The concept of
hydrological management at subwatershed scale has been adopted because it encom-
passes the areal extent of a drought event. Fourteen (14) sub-watersheds of Pinios
river basin were delineated according to the major tributaries of Pinios river using
GIS. For the assessment of hydrological drought, because none of the sub-watersheds
have flow gauge stations at their outlets, a six-parameter monthly conceptual water
balance model (UTHBAL model), has been applied regionally to simulate runoff
for the period October 1960September 2002. The synthetic runoff was normalized
through Box-Cox transformation and standardized to the mean runoff to produce
the water balance derived drought index for hydrological drought assessment. The
standardized precipitation index (SPI) at multiple time scales and four indices of
the Palmer method (i.e. PDSI, WPLM, PHDI and the Palmer moisture anomaly
Z-index) were also calculated to assess hydrological droughts. The results showed
that the water balance derived drought index is a good indicator of hydrological
drought in all sub-watersheds, since is capable to quantify drought severity and
duration. Furthermore, the drought index provides guidance on the selection of
an appropriate meteorological drought index for operational hydrological drought
monitoring. Hence, SPI at 3- and 6-month timescales and the WPLM could be used
along with the water balance derived drought index in risk and decision analyses at
the study area.

Part of this paper has been presented at EWRAs 7th International Conference on Water
Resources Conservancy and Risk Reduction Under Climatic Instability and it is submitted
for review and possible publication in a Special Issue of the Journal of Water Resources
Management (WARM).
L. Vasiliades (B) A. Loukas N. Liberis
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Pedion Areos, 38334 Volos, Greece
e-mail: lvassil@uth.gr
URL: http://civ.uth.gr
1088 L. Vasiliades et al.

Keywords Drought indices Drought severity Hydrological drought

Meteorological drought Runoff

1 Introduction

Droughts are long-term phenomena affecting large regions causing significant dam-
ages in human lives and economic losses. Droughts are the costliest natural disaster
of the world and affect more people than any other natural disaster. Therefore, it
is important to develop early warning systems to mitigate drought effects (WMO
2000; Svoboda et al. 2002; Mendicino and Versace 2007; Wilhite et al. 2007). Four
types of droughts could be recognized: (a) meteorological drought resulted from
a lack of precipitation, (b) agricultural drought related to a shortage of available
water for plant growth, and is assessed as insufficient soil moisture to replace
evapotranspirative losses, (c) hydrological drought, which is related to a period
with inadequate surface and subsurface water resources to supply established water
uses, and (d) the socio-economic drought which is associated to the failure of water
resources systems to meet water demands (Wilhite and Glantz 1985; AMS 1997).
Among the different types of droughts, the hydrological component is the most
important given the high dependence of many activities (industrial, urban water
supply and hydropower generation) on surface water resources. The simplest way to
monitor drought is to use drought indices that calculate drought severity, duration
and areal extent for each drought type. Several drought indices were developed,
based on different variables and parameters, to assess drought types (Tate and
Gustard 2000; Heim 2002; Keyantash and Dracup 2002). Indices for monitoring
climate variability and drought impacts have long been used as the basis for planning
and assessing the need for domestic and international aid to affected populations.
Associated with this has been an ongoing debate as to which indices are the most
reliable and appropriate to aid decisions by government and private agencies as to
when and where to provide financial assistance.
A deficit of precipitation has various impacts on different components of hydro-
logical cycle (river flow, groundwater) and components of biosphere (ecosystems,
humans). For example, soil moisture conditions respond to precipitation anomalies
on a relatively short scale. Peters et al. (2005) have shown that the effects of
the meteorological droughts on groundwater are the decrease of the frequency of
drought events and a shift in the drought distribution. Groundwater, river flow and
reservoir storage reflect the long-term precipitation anomalies. These anomalies
allow different drought types to be defined conceptually and to be described in
terms of various drought indices. Numerous studies have been published on the
development and applications of drought indices derived from hydrometeorological
data (e.g. Palmer drought severity index, surface water supply index, standardized
precipitation index, effective drought index, rainfall deciles), and from satellite data
(e.g. normalized difference vegetation index, enhanced vegetation index, vegetation
condition index; Quiring 2009; White and Walcott 2009). Most of the drought indices
derived from meteorological data, primarily precipitation and temperature, could be
used to assess not only meteorological droughts but also agricultural and hydrological
droughts. These data are normally readily available throughout the world, which
partially explains the variety of such indices and the general popularity of this
A Water Balance Derived Drought Index for Pinios River Basin, Greece 1089

approach. Recent studies have used meteorological drought indices as indicators of

hydrological and water resources variables, like soil moisture, surface runoff, reser-
voir storage and groundwater (Vicente-Serrano and Lopez-Moreno 2005; Edossa
et al. 2009; Fiorillo and Guadagno 2009; Vasiliades and Loukas 2009; Lorenzo-
Lacruz et al. 2010). Keyantash and Dracup (2002) assessed the most commonly used
drought indices for hydrological drought. They found total water deficit derived by
the theory of runs superior as compared to the cumulative streamflow anomaly,
the Palmer hydrological drought severity index and the surface water supply index.
The spell or run analysis may be performed on data with any temporal resolution
from daily to annual. A number of consecutive time intervals where the selected
flow variable (a discharge or flow volume) has lower values than a reference flow
level indicate the duration of a drought event. For each such event, the sum of
deviations of a flow variable from the reference level represents the cumulative flow
deficit amount (drought severity). This deficit divided by the duration is the measure
of drought intensity (Tallaksen and van Lanen 2004). The analysis of streamflow
data for drought management is, however, often hampered by the lack of such
data, shorter availability length when compared to meteorological data, artificial
influences (e.g. catchment land-use change, effluents, abstraction), etc. In addition,
in the context of Greece, flow data are often of poor quality and are not easily
available from relevant authorities, at least at present. However, drought indices
derived from flow data are quite limited and should be used to assess hydrological
droughts. Up to now, little progress has been made to define drought indices using
flow data. Therefore, establishing a runoff-dependent drought index is of practical
significance to water managers. To this rationale, Shukla and Wood (2008) proposed
the standardized runoff index (SRI) to analyze simulated runoff data on different
time scales using the same concept of the SPI for USA. They used the physically
based, semi-distributed macro-scale variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model out-
puts to estimate runoff and subsequently the SRI. In another study, a new index,
the aggregate drought index that considers all relevant variables of the hydrological
cycle through principal component analysis, was proposed but due to high data
requirements and complexity is not yet used operationally (Keyantash and Dracup
2004). Narasimhan and Srinivasan (2005), using the soil and water assessment tool
(SWAT) model, derived two drought indices for agricultural drought monitoring,
the soil moisture deficit index (SMDI) and the evapotranspiration deficit index
(ETDI), based respectively on weekly soil moisture and evapotranspiration deficit.
Recently, a methodology for characterising the severity of hydrological droughts was
proposed, which uses an index analogous to SPI, the streamflow drought index (SDI)
at watershed scale (Nalbantis and Tsakiris 2009). Finally, the groundwater resource
index (GRI) derived from a simple distributed water balance model, was presented
as a reliable tool useful in a multi-analysis approach for monitoring and forecasting
drought conditions for groundwater (Mendicino et al. 2008).
This study is trying to develop an operational hydrological drought index for
Pinios river basin, Greece, at subwatershed scale by using a monthly water balance
model; it comprises an extension and continuation study of Vasiliades and Loukas
(2009). Furthermore, by comparing the proposed drought index with meteorological
drought indices (the SPI at multiple timescales and the Palmer drought indices)
it tries to identify meteorological drought indices with a specific timescale to be
operative for hydrological management purposes. These sub-watersheds, which
1090 L. Vasiliades et al.

were delineated according to the major tributaries of Pinios river using GIS, show
high complexity of hydrological processes with a marked seasonal and interannual
variability. The Water Framework Directive defines the river basin as the only scale
for applying measures for water resources protection and management. The concept
at subwatershed scale was adopted because it encompasses the areal extent of a
drought event, since water managers are interested in streamflow only at a small
number of points in space (i.e. basin and subbasin outlets, reservoir inlets and outlets
etc.). Surface runoff at these points provides an integrated measure of spatially
distributed runoff.

2 Study Area

Pinios river basin is located in central Greece and is a plain region surrounded
by high mountains. The plain region with an area of about 4,000 km2 is one of
the most productive agricultural regions of Greece. The main crops cultivated are
cotton, wheat and maize, whereas, apple, apricot, cherry, olive trees and grapes are
cultivated at the foothills of the eastern mountains. Pinios River and its tributaries
traverse the plain area, and the basin total drainage area is about 9,500 km2 (Fig. 1).
The climate is continental at the western and central side of Pinios river basin
and Mediterranean at the eastern side. Winters are cold and wet and summers
are hot and dry with large temperature difference between the two seasons. Mean
annual precipitation over Thessaly region is about 700 mm and it is distributed
unevenly in space and time. The mean annual precipitation varies from about
400 mm at the central plain area to more than 1850 mm at the western mountain
peaks. Generally, rainfall is rare from June to August. The mountain areas receive
significant amounts of snow during the winter months and transient snowpacks
develop. The waters of Pinios River are used primarily for irrigation and for use in
hydroelectric power plant located at Smokovo. The intense and extensive cultivation
of water demanding crops has lead to a remarkable water demand increase, which
is usually fulfilled by the over-exploitation of groundwater resources. For example,
nearly 65,000 ha are irrigated with surface waters and more than 210,000 ha of
agricultural area are supplied by groundwater. The overexploitation of the ground-
water, especially during extended dry periods, has led to the deterioration of the
already disturbed water balance and the degradation of water resources. Thessaly
experienced severe, extreme and persistent droughts during the periods from mid
to late 1970s, from late 1980s to early 1990s and the first years of 2000s (Loukas
and Vasiliades 2004; Vasiliades and Loukas 2009). These three drought periods
were quite remarkable and affected large areas. During these three periods, the
monthly and annual precipitation was significantly bellow normal in Thessaly. The
prolonged and significant decrease of monthly and annual precipitation has a dra-
matic impact on natural vegetation, agricultural production and the water resources
of the region. The above-mentioned problem became more evident during the last
two decades. Various water resources management measures have been proposed
to deal with the water deficit of Thessaly plain. These measures can be categorized
into water demand management measures and water supply management measures
(Loukas et al. 2007).
A Water Balance Derived Drought Index for Pinios River Basin, Greece 1091

Fig. 1 Study area and database

Fourteen (14) subwatersheds of Pinios river basin were delineated according

to the major tributaries of Pinios river using GIS (Fig. 1). Processed monthly
precipitation data from a large network of precipitation stations (Fig. 1) for the
period October 1960 to September 2002 were used. The monthly areal precipitation
of each subwatershed was estimated by the Thiessen polygon method modified by
the precipitation gradient using the stations, which are within or in the vicinity
of the watershed. Mean monthly basin-wide temperature was estimated using the
mean monthly temperature data from 27 meteorological stations (Fig. 1) with the
method of temperature gradient. One temperature gradient was used for all study
areas. Monthly areal potential evapotranspiration has been calculated by using the
Thornthwaite method. Finally, monthly discharge data from eight (8) water-gauging
stations were used for the calibration of the hydrological model to estimate model
parameters. Table 1 presents the main characteristics of the studied watersheds.

3 Methodology

This study evaluates hydrological drought detection using a water balance derived
drought index. The study subwatersheds have no discharge observations at their
outlets. Hence, the use of simulated discharges is mandatory. Furthermore, it is
impossible in a hydrological drought monitoring system to have streamflow mea-
surements in the important junctions of the major tributaries of a large river basin.
For these reasons, the monthly conceptual water balance UTHBAL model (Loukas
et al. 2007) has been used to reconstruct and produce simulated runoff data.
1092 L. Vasiliades et al.

Table 1 Characteristics of the study watersheds

Subwatershed Area Mean Elevation Mean annual Mean annual
(km2 ) elevation (m) range (m) rainfall (mm) runoffa (mm)
Enipeas 1,079.31 393.9 1001,626 560.7 104.2
Farsaliotis 792.61 227.3 1001,008 587.3 166.6
Kalentzis 502.81 315.7 1001,428 870.3 248.0
Kousbasaniotis 530.03 192.7 100711 485.0 44.6
Litheos 361.36 317.9 1001,190 689.1 340.3
Mesdani 1,116.22 790.7 1162,129 1027.7 611.7
Neoxori 308.22 452.4 1001,409 604.0 187.3
Pamisos 233.14 583.6 1001,990 1186.0 522.3
Pinios 1,293.76 275.9 701,905 640.8 253.5
Pliouris 274.79 157.7 1001,004 522.1 86.2
Portaikos 308.44 632.7 1171,852 1361.4 737.0
Sofaditis 734.00 469.1 1001,618 735.4 372.7
Theopetra 142.89 213.5 100757 622.6 213.6
Titarisios 1,925.94 610.5 1002,728 624.5 160.1
a Estimated from UTHBAL model

3.1 The Water Balance Derived Drought Index

The UTHBAL model allocates the watershed runoff into three components, the
surface runoff, the interflow runoff and the baseflow runoff using a soil moisture
mechanism with the first priority of the balancing being the fulfillment of actual
evapotranspiration. The model separates the total precipitation into rainfall and
snowfall, because the correct separation of precipitation is essential for accurate
runoff simulation. The rain-snow percentage is estimated using a logistic relationship
based on mean monthly temperature and the snowmelt is calculated estimated
using the simple degree-day method. A complete mathematical formulation of the
UTHBAL model could be found in a recent paper (Loukas et al. 2007). The
UTHBAL model requires monthly values of mean temperature, precipitation, and
potential evapotranspiration and produces values for actual evapotranspiration, soil
moisture, groundwater and surface runoff. The input time series were estimated
using the methods presented in the previous paragraphs. The UTHBAL model
has six parameters to be optimized in order to estimate watershed runoff. In this
study, model parameter values were taken from previous application of UTHBAL
in selected watersheds of Pinios river basin (Loukas et al. 2007; Vasiliades and
Loukas 2009). The simulation of the runoff in the ungauged sub-watersheds was
achieved using regional estimates of model parameters based on their topographical,
geological and land cover-land use characteristics.
The produced synthetic runoff time series were used for the estimation of hy-
drological drought. McKee et al. (1993) select the Gamma distribution for fitting
monthly precipitation data series, and suggest that the procedure can be applied to
other variables relevant to drought, e.g., streamflow or reservoir contents. In pur-
suing this suggestion for model-based runoff, we note that distributions other than
the Gamma may be more appropriate, depending on the runoff variables sample
characteristics (especially skew and kurtosis), which vary greatly with geographic
location and degree of temporal aggregation. For example, Shukla and Wood (2008)
showed that the two-parameter log normal (LN) distribution provides a better fit
A Water Balance Derived Drought Index for Pinios River Basin, Greece 1093

at high extremes than the Gamma distribution, whereas, the Gamma distribution
perform better for low runoff values for the Feather River basin, at California, USA.
Lpez-Moreno et al. (2009) chose the Pearson type III distribution for modeling
monthly streamflow in the Tagus basin based on L-moments ratios diagrams. In
this study, skewness coefficients of simulated discharge values were estimated for
all study watersheds for the period of analysis on monthly basis. The skewness
test of normality (Snedecor and Cochran 1980) and the Filliben probability plot
correlation test (Filliben 1975) were both applied at the 10% significance level for
each month (24 tests per subwatershed). The results show that for all watersheds and
almost all months (except the summer months) are statistically significant at the 10%
significance level. To remove skewness, the Box-Cox transformation was used since
it is capable to deal with non-linear data over widely varying hydro-climatic regimes
(Box and Cox 1964; Salas et al. 1980). The Box-Cox transformation takes the form:

X 1
, = 0
Y= (1)

ln(X), = 0

The transformed runoff values are then standardized to translate into the standard
normal distribution as function of Z , where Z is the variable in normalizing process,
using:

Y Y
Z WBI = (2)
Y
where, X are the values of the original time series of surface runoff, Y are the
values of the transformed time series, is a parameter for which the values of the
transformed time series (Y) are normally distributed, Z WBI are the values of the
standardized time series, Y is the mean value of the transformed time series and Y
is the standard deviation of the transformed time series. The Box-Cox transformation
requires finding an optimal value of that yields a transformed variable with a
distribution close to normal. The optimal values of were found with the maximum
likelihood approach (Press et al. 2007). The transformation and standardization
have been performed on monthly basis, meaning that the monthly values have been
analyzed individually and separately for each month of the year. The transformed
and standardized runoff time series were used as indicators of hydrological drought
severity. This normalization approach is different from the threshold level approach
for streamflow deficits (Tallaksen and van Lanen 2004) and applied in several studies
(e.g. Hisdal and Tallaksen 2003; Tsakiris et al. 2007; Pandey et al. 2008; Wu et al.
2008). Once standardized the strength of the anomaly is classified as set out in
Table 2. This table also contains the corresponding probabilities of occurrence of
each severity level arising naturally from the Normal probability density function.
Thus, at a given location for an individual month, moderate dry periods (Z WBI 1)
have an occurrence probability of 15.9%, whereas, extreme dry periods (Z WBI 2)
have an event probability of 2.3%. Extreme values in the Z WBI will, by definition, oc-
cur with the same frequency at all locations. Negative Z WBI values indicate droughts
and positive Z WBI values denote wet weather conditions (Table 2). Magnitude and
duration of hydrological drought, as well as the probability of emergence from
drought, are determined from the Z WBI index. One major advantage of the Z WBI
is its spatial invariance across different climate regions.
1094 L. Vasiliades et al.

Table 2 Drought classification Drought index value Category Probability (%)

by Z WBI values and
corresponding event 2.00 or more Extremely wet 2.3
probabilities 1.50 to 1.99 Severely wet 4.4
1.00 to 1.49 Moderately wet 9.2
0.99 to 0.99 Near normal 68.2
1.49 to 1.00 Moderately dry 9.2
1.99 to 1.50 Severely dry 4.4
2 or less Extremely dry 2.3

3.2 Meteorological Drought Indices Used

Recent studies have used meteorological drought indices as indicators of hydrologi-

cal and water resources variables, like soil moisture, surface runoff and reservoir
storage. Vasiliades and Loukas (2009) presented the assessment of Palmer drought
indices as indicators of surface runoff and soil moisture drought at seven (7) basins
ranging from 133 to 6,591 km2 in Thessaly, Greece. They found that weighted PDSI
is a good indicator of surface runoff drought, whereas the Palmer Z -anomaly index
represents satisfactorily soil moisture drought. Vicente-Serrano and Lopez-Moreno
(2005) evaluated the standardized precipitation index (SPI) of various time scales as
indicator of runoff and reservoir storage in a 2,181 km2 mountainous basin in Spain.
They provided empirical evidence that surface runoff respond to short SPI time
scales (14 months), whereas the reservoir storages respond to longer time scales (7
10 months). Edossa et al. (2009) showed that surface discharge lags meteorological
droughts estimated with the SPI by 7 months in the Upper Awash river basin at Ethiopia.
Finally, Fiorillo and Guadagno (2009) showed that karst spring discharges correspond
better with the 12-month SPI for a large karst system in Campania, Southern Italy.
The standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the Palmer drought indices, were
employed in the analysis to evaluate the water balance derived drought index for hy-
drological drought detection. The studied meteorological drought indices have been
applied successfully to monitor drought conditions in several studies at Greece (i.e.
Loukas and Vasiliades 2004; Tsakiris and Vangelis 2004; Livada and Asimakopoulos
2007; Mavromatis 2007; Vasiliades and Loukas 2009). The standardized precipitation
index (McKee et al. 1993) has been developed for defining and monitoring droughts.
The main advantage of the SPI is that can be calculated for multiple time-scales. This
is very important because the timescale over which precipitation deficits accumulate
functionally separates different types of drought and, therefore, allows to quantify
the natural lags between precipitation and other water usable sources such as river
discharge, soil moisture and reservoir storage. Computation of the SPI involves
fitting a Gamma probability density function to a given frequency distribution of
precipitation totals for a station, area or a watershed. The cumulative probability is
subsequently transformed to the standard normal random variable z with mean equal
to zero and variance of one, which is the value of the SPI (Table 2). The Palmer
drought indices (Palmer 1965) are: (1) The Palmer drought severity index (PDSI),
(2) The Palmer hydrological drought index (PHDI), a hydrological drought index
used to assess long-term moisture supply, (3) the Palmer moisture anomaly Z -index
(Palmer Z -index), a measure of the departure from normal of the moisture climate
for that month. This index can respond to a month of above-normal precipitation,
even during periods of drought and (4) the modified palmer drought severity index
A Water Balance Derived Drought Index for Pinios River Basin, Greece 1095

(WPLM) as proposed by the National Weather Service Climate Analysis Center

for operational meteorological purposes (Heddinghaus and Sabol 1991). Although
Palmer indices are referred to as meteorological drought indices, however, the
calculation procedure considers precipitation, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture
conditions, which are determinants of hydrological drought, i.e. the period during
which the actual water supply is less than the minimum water supply necessary for
normal operations in a particular region.
In this study, areal monthly precipitation accumulations were used for the es-
timation of the monthly SPI for 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, 12-, and 24-month timescales. Time
series of monthly areal precipitation and temperature were used for the calculation
of Palmers indices. The estimation of the available water capacity was taken from
the UTHBAL model for all of the studied watersheds. Finally, because the Palmer
indices have been criticized for their arbitrary classes and their spatial comparability
(Vasiliades and Loukas 2009), all Palmer indices have been standardized to the
normal distribution in order to be comparable with the study drought indices. Hence,
the strength of the anomaly for all of the calculated drought indices is classified as
set out in Table 2.

4 ResultsDiscussion

A hydrological drought index for Pinios river basin at subwatershed scale using a
monthly water balance model is developed for operational use. Furthermore, by
comparing the proposed drought index with meteorological drought indices (the
SPI at multiple timescales and the Palmer drought indices) it tries to operationally
identify the suitable meteorological drought indices for hydrological management
purposes. Table 3 shows the Pearson correlation coefficients between the water
balance derived drought index (Z WBI ), and the meteorological drought indices.
For river discharges, correlations are positive, but there are important differences
with regard to examined meteorological drought indices. Higher correlations have
been obtained with the 3-month SPI and 6-month SPI (average R = 0.80 and 0.79,

Table 3 Correlation between Z WBI and meteorological drought indices (values in italic show the
best meteorological drought index with the Z WBI )
Sub-watershed SPI-1 SPI-3 SPI-6 SPI-9 SPI-12 SPI-24 PDSI PHDI WPLM Z-index
Enipeas 0.47 0.86 0.81 0.67 0.58 0.38 0.78 0.73 0.80 0.71
Farsaliotis 0.44 0.84 0.80 0.68 0.57 0.37 0.80 0.73 0.81 0.70
Kalentzis 0.35 0.76 0.85 0.80 0.75 0.60 0.80 0.80 0.85 0.58
Kousbasaniotis 0.21 0.46 0.65 0.73 0.77 0.77 0.78 0.77 0.79 0.47
Litheos 0.52 0.91 0.82 0.70 0.61 0.44 0.76 0.70 0.78 0.73
Mesdani 0.59 0.86 0.70 0.56 0.49 0.38 0.76 0.70 0.81 0.71
Neoxori 0.46 0.86 0.84 0.76 0.69 0.49 0.79 0.75 0.82 0.70
Pamisos 0.49 0.81 0.74 0.62 0.55 0.44 0.76 0.75 0.80 0.63
Pinios 0.45 0.83 0.81 0.68 0.60 0.41 0.77 0.72 0.78 0.68
Pliouris 0.49 0.79 0.92 0.89 0.85 0.64 0.82 0.77 0.81 0.75
Portaikos 0.62 0.82 0.64 0.52 0.46 0.37 0.73 0.69 0.78 0.72
Sofaditis 0.41 0.76 0.73 0.64 0.56 0.39 0.67 0.60 0.67 0.62
Theopetra 0.49 0.87 0.85 0.76 0.69 0.52 0.80 0.76 0.82 0.71
Titarisios 0.46 0.80 0.81 0.74 0.64 0.51 0.77 0.73 0.80 0.67
1096 L. Vasiliades et al.

respectively, for all watersheds) but with large variability (Table 3) followed by
WPLM (average R = 0.79 for all watersheds, and ranging from 0.64 to 0.85) and
PDSI (Table 3) for all of the studied watersheds. Graphical examination of temporal
evolution and scattergraphs confirm that the Z WBI matches better the 3-month SPI
and 6-month SPI for all watersheds except for Kousbasaniotis watershed which
Z WBI corresponds better to larger timescales (12-month SPI and 24-month SPI). A
possible reason could be the small slopes of this watershed and the undulating terrain.
Graphical comparison of water balance derived drought index with Palmer indices
show that WPLM closely matches the Z WBI index. For example, Fig. 2 presents the
Z WBI time series values with the best meteorological drought indices identified from
correlation analysis for Enipeas and Kousbasaniotis subwatersheds. Similar drought
patterns are observed in all other subwatersheds. The monthly patterns follow the
results of the continuous correlation analysis. High correlations (R > 0.8) are found
for autumn and early winter months. The highest correlations were obtained in
December and January. On the contrary, the worst correlations were obtained for
spring and summer months. This noticeable seasonality in the strength of correlations

4.00

3.00
(a)

2.00
Index Value

1.00

0.00

-1.00

-2.00

-3.00
ZWBI SPI 3-month WPLM
-4.00
0

0
-6

-6

-6

-6

-6

-7

-7

-7

-7

-7

-8

-8

-8

-8

-8

-9

-9

-9

-9

-9

-0
ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct
O

5.00
(b)
4.00
3.00

2.00
Index Value

1.00
0.00

-1.00

-2.00
-3.00
ZWBI SPI 12-month WPLM
-4.00
0

0
-6

-6

-6

-6

-6

-7

-7

-7

-7

-7

-8

-8

-8

-8

-8

-9

-9

-9

-9

-9

-0
ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct

ct
O

Fig. 2 Time series of best identified meteorological drought indices and water balance derived
drought index for a Enipeas and b Kousbasaniotis subwatersheds
A Water Balance Derived Drought Index for Pinios River Basin, Greece 1097

is, probably, the result of the watershed hydrological behavior. A possible reason
could be the seasonal variability of precipitation and the accumulation of snow and
its consequent melting. The snow accumulation and the snowmelt are not accounted
in the calculation of the meteorological drought indices but they are taken into
consideration in the water balance derived drought index.
Drought episodes have been identified for the examined drought indices in this
study. Table 4 presents the identified drought episodes (drought index value 1)

Table 4 Identified drought episodes for the study drought indices in all Pinios river subwatersheds
Subwatershed Drought Moderately Severely Extremely Total Average drought
index dry episodes dry episodes dry episodes dry episodes duration (months)
Enipeas SPI-3 20 9 3 32 2.4
WPLM 14 1 1 16 4.2
Z WBI 15 8 2 25 2.4
Farsaliotis SPI-3 20 9 1 30 2.7
WPLM 16 1 1 18 4.3
Z WBI 17 5 3 25 2.8
Kalentzis SPI-6 13 7 1 21 3.6
WPLM 10 4 0 14 6.9
Z WBI 6 8 2 16 4.1
Kousbasaniotis SPI-12 9 2 0 11 6.9
WPLM 9 1 0 10 7.6
Z WBI 7 0 1 8 8.1
Litheos SPI-3 17 12 1 30 2.8
WPLM 12 2 1 15 4.7
Z WBI 16 8 1 25 3.0
Mesdani SPI-3 16 12 4 32 2.4
WPLM 15 6 0 21 3.7
Z WBI 21 8 1 30 2.7
Neoxori SPI-3 22 10 3 35 2.3
WPLM 8 3 0 11 7.7
Z WBI 12 5 1 18 4.1
Pamisos SPI-3 21 16 1 38 2.1
WPLM 16 3 0 19 4.1
Z WBI 27 9 0 36 2.4
Pinios SPI-3 22 12 0 34 2.5
WPLM 12 3 0 15 5.8
Z WBI 20 5 1 26 2.9
Pliouris SPI-6 11 6 1 18 4.7
WPLM 7 2 0 9 12.4
Z WBI 12 8 1 21 3.7
Portaikos SPI-3 26 10 3 39 2.1
WPLM 16 4 0 20 3.7
Z WBI 29 7 3 39 1.9
Sofaditis SPI-3 23 11 1 35 2.2
WPLM 8 3 1 12 5.9
Z WBI 15 5 2 22 2.3
Theopetra SPI-3 21 10 2 33 2.5
WPLM 8 1 1 10 9.5
Z WBI 14 6 2 22 3.4
Titarisios SPI-6 12 7 1 20 3.7
WPLM 13 1 1 15 5.0
Z WBI 17 3 2 22 3.4
1098 L. Vasiliades et al.

and their respective drought classes for the period Oct 1960Sep 2002 for the
water balance drought index and the best meteorological drought index identified
by the previous analyses (one timescale for SPI and WPLM for Palmer indices).
Average drought episode duration is also shown. These results show that the water
balance derived drought index is capable to quantify drought episodes and duration
identified by the meteorological drought indices. Overall, frequent moderate and
severe droughts in Pinios river subwatersheds are identified and have small duration.
However, extreme drought episodes are present in all subwatersheds except for
Pamisos watershed and have longer durations. For example, the extreme drought
episode in Enipeas catchment identified by Z WBI in the hydrologic year 19761977
has duration of 9 months (Dec 1976Aug 1977), drought severity of 2.75 and
maximum drought peak of 3.68. The same event has identified as extreme by SPI-
3 and WPLM with 7 (Dec 1976Jun 1977) and 20 (Jan 1977Aug 1978) months
duration, respectively. Similar results are observed in quantifying drought episodes
at the other Pinios river subwatersheds. Drought duration identified by Z WBI is
quite similar to the SPI identified duration whereas the Palmer indices overestimate
drought event duration. Hence, SPI is more capable than WPLM in depicting
hydrological droughts. This conclusion is based on the responsiveness of the SPI
to emerging precipitation deficits at shorter time scales (e.g. 3 months). Thus, the
SPI recognizes moisture deficits more rapidly than the PDSI, which has a response
timescale of approximately 812 months (Heim 2002). The latter is obvious in the
Kousbasaniotis subwatershed. The developed water balance derived drought index
constitutes a versatile tool that can be used in an operational context for drought
monitoring. For a given water resource system, the appropriate correlation between
the hydrological drought index and the time scale of a meteorological drought index
could be selected to evaluate the current situation with respect to historical events.

5 Concluding Remarks

This study evaluated hydrological droughts by using a water balance derived drought
index within an operational context at subwatershed scale. The hydrological drought
severity was evaluated from the standardized outputs of the monthly UTHBAL
conceptual water balance model in major subwatersheds of Pinios river basin
with varying geomorphologic characteristics and high complexity of hydrological
processes with a marked seasonal and interannual variability. Since, in general,
streamflow data are difficult to obtain in real-time, the possibility of using a regional
water balance model to simulate hydrological droughts is quite promising for the
study area. However, caution is needed for application of the UTHBAL model in
ungauged watersheds at different climate regimes without prior calibration. Results
of the initiatives for predictions in ungauged basins (PUB) are aiming to minimize
uncertainty in hydrological practice. In this study, the UTHBAL model parameter
used were calibrated in previous studies at seven (7) gauged of Thessaly region and
for a total of 225 station-years (Loukas et al. 2007; Vasiliades and Loukas 2009).
These calibration results indicated that the runoff simulation errors are minimized
and the NashSutcliffe model efficiency ranged from 0.80 to 0.71 and the percentage
runoff volume error ranged from 1.98% to 0.96%. The simulation of the runoff
in the ungauged study sub-watersheds of Pinios river was achieved using regional
A Water Balance Derived Drought Index for Pinios River Basin, Greece 1099

estimates of model parameters based on their topographical, geological and land

cover-land use characteristics. No significant change in the land use has been made
over the years in the study watersheds and the watersheds used for the calibration of
UTHBAL model, there are no major reservoirs and the surface water abstractions
are limited. Thus, the human impacts on surface runoff are considered unchanged
for the period of simulation.
The water balance derived drought index (Z WBI ) is easy to calculate and apply.
It is based, in this study, on simulated runoff and this is an advantage of the index
especially in ungauged watersheds or watersheds with limited runoff data. Moreover,
impacts of human activities on surface runoff could be estimated, evaluated and
excluded in the calculation of Z WBI . However, caution should be paid on the
uncertainties and errors that may be transferred from hydrological simulation to
Z WBI calculation.
Comparison of the water balance derived drought index with two well-known
meteorological drought index families, the SPI at multiple time scales and the four
Palmer indices, showed that SPI time scales of 3- and 6-month and the weighted
palmer index (WPLM) represent better the hydrological droughts for all study sub-
watersheds irrespectively to their area, geophysical, and hydroclimatic characteristics
since are satisfactorily correlated with the water balance index. The assessment of hy-
drological drought severity was quite successful with all examined hydrological and
meteorological drought indices. However, the response of meteorological drought
indices to the identified historical drought episodes was quite variable. Different
results were obtained in the evaluation of hydrological drought duration whereas
SPI simulates satisfactorily hydrological drought duration and the Palmer drought
indices fail to represent satisfactorily drought episode duration. The SPI is simpler
than the PDSI in calculation and is more spatially consistent. It can be used along
with the water balance derived drought index in risk and decision analyses, if the
user knows exactly what operational timescale is needed. The choice of indices for
drought monitoring in a specific area should eventually be based on the quantity of
climate data available and on the ability of the index to consistently detect spatial and
temporal variations during a drought event. To summarize, the water balance derived
drought index is useful for Pinios river basin, where agriculture and water resources
management are depended on water from inland rivers rather than precipitation.
Furthermore, the drought index provides guidance of which meteorological drought
index should be used for operational hydrological drought monitoring. Other pos-
sible applications of the proposed drought index are for planning the water usage
of irrigation and predicting the trend of crop yields in the irrigated zones. The above
findings could be useful for forecasting and monitoring hydrological drought severity
and in developing a drought preparedness plan in the region.

References

American Meteorological Society (AMS) (1997) Meteorological droughtpolicy statement. Bull

Am Meteorol Soc 78:847849
Box GEP, Cox DR (1964) An analysis of transformation. J R Stat Soc Ser B 26(1):211252
Edossa DC, Babel MS, Das Gupta A (2009) Drought analysis in the Awash River basin, Ethiopia.
Water Resour Manag 24(7):14411460. doi:10.1007/s11269-009-9508-0
Filliben JJ (1975) The probability plot correlation coefficient test for normality. Technometrics
17(1):111117
1100 L. Vasiliades et al.

Fiorillo F, Guadagno FM (2009) Karst spring discharges analysis in relation to drought periods, using
the SPI. Water Resour Manag. doi:10.1007/s11269-009-9528-9
Heddinghaus TR, Sabol P (1991) A review of the Palmer drought severity index and where do we
go from here? In: Preprints, seventh conf. on applied climatology, Salt Lake City, UT, Amer.
Meteor. Soc., pp 242246
Heim RR Jr (2002) A review of twentieth-century drought indices used in the United States. Bull
Am Meteorol Soc 83(8):11491165
Hisdal H, Tallaksen LM (2003) Estimation of regional meteorological and hydrological drought
characteristics: a case study for Denmark. J Hydrol 281:230247
Keyantash J, Dracup JA (2002) The quantification of drought: an evaluation of drought indices. Bull
Am Meteorol Soc 83(8):11671180
Keyantash JA, Dracup JA (2004) An aggregate drought index: assessing drought severity based on
fluctuations in the hydrologic cycle and surface water storage. Water Resour Res 40:W09304.
doi:10.1029/2003WR002610
Livada I, Asimakopoulos VD (2007) Spatial and temporal analysis of drought in Greece using the
standardized precipitation index (SPI). Theor Appl Climatol 89:143153
Lpez-Moreno JI, Vicente-Serrano SM, Beguera S, Garca-Ruiz JM, Portela MM, Almeida AB
(2009) Dam effects on droughts magnitude and duration in a transboundary basin: the Lower
River Tagus, Spain and Portugal. Water Resour Res 45:W02405. doi:10.1029/2008WR007198
Lorenzo-Lacruz J, Vicente-Serrano SM, Lpez-Moreno JI, Beguera S, Garca-Ruiz JM, Cuadrat
JM (2010) The impact of droughts and water management on various hydrological systems in
the headwaters of the Tagus River (central Spain). J Hydrol 386:1326
Loukas A, Vasiliades L (2004) Probabilistic analysis of drought spatiotemporal characteristics in
Thessaly Region, Greece. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 4(56):719731
Loukas A, Mylopoulos N, Vasiliades L (2007) A modeling system for the evaluation of water
resources management strategies in Thessaly, Greece. Water Resour Manag 21:16731702
Mavromatis T (2007) Drought index evaluation for assessing future wheat production in Greece. Int
J Climatol 27(7):911924
McKee TB, Doesken NJ, Kleist J (1993) The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time
scales. In: Preprints, 8th conference on applied climatology, Amer. Meteor. Soc., Anaheim, CA,
pp 179184
Mendicino G, Versace P (2007) Integrated drought watch system: a case study in southern Italy.
Water Resour Manag 21:14091428
Mendicino G, Senatore A, Versace P (2008) A Groundwater Resource Index (GRI) for drought
monitoring and forecasting in a Mediterranean climate. J Hydrol 357:282302
Nalbantis I, Tsakiris G (2009) Assessment of hydrological drought revisited. Water Resour Manag
23:881897
Narasimhan B, Srinivasan R (2005) Development and evaluation of soil moisture deficit index
(SMDI) and evapotranspiration deficit index (ETDI) for agricultural drought monitoring. Agric
For Meteorol 133:6988
Palmer WC (1965) Meteorological drought. Research Paper No 45. US Weather Bureau, Washington,
DC, p 58
Pandey RP, Mishra SK, Singh R, Ramasastri KS (2008) Streamflow drought severity analysis of
Betwa river system (India). Water Resour Manag 22:11271141
Peters E, van Lanen HAJ, Torfs PJJF, Bier G (2005) Drought in groundwater-drought distribution
and performance indicators. J Hydrol 306:302317
Press WH, Teukolsky SA, Vetterling WT, Flannery BP (2007) Numerical recipes. The art of scientific
computing, 3rd edn. Cambridge University Press, 1256 pp
Quiring SM (2009) Monitoring drought: an evaluation of meteorological drought indices. Geography
Compass 3(1):6488
Salas JD, Delleur JW, Yevjevich V, Lane WL (1980) Applied modeling of hydrologic time series,
WWP, Littleton, Colorado
Shukla S, Wood AW (2008) Use of a standardized runoff index for characterizing hydrologic
drought. Geophys Res Lett 35:L02405. doi:10.1029/2007GL032487
Snedecor GW, Cochran WG (1980) Statistical methods, 7th edn. Iowa State University Press,
Iowa
Svoboda MD, LeComte D, Hayes MJ, Heim R, Gleason K, Angel J, Rippey B, Tinker R, Palecki
M, Stooksbury D, Miskus D, Stevens D (2002) The drought monitor. Bull Am Meteorol Soc
83(8):11811190
A Water Balance Derived Drought Index for Pinios River Basin, Greece 1101

Tallaksen LM, van Lanen HAJ (eds) (2004) Hydrological drought - processes and estimation meth-
ods for streamflow and groundwater. Developments in Water Sciences 48. Elsevier B.V., The
Netherlands
Tate EL, Gustard A (2000) Drought definition: a hydrological perspective. In: Voght JV, Somma
F (eds) Drought and drought mitigation in Europe. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht,
pp 2348
Tsakiris G, Vangelis H (2004) Towards a drought watch system based on spatial SPI. Water Resour
Manag 18:112
Tsakiris G, Pangalou D, Vangelis H (2007) Regional drought assessment based on the Reconnais-
sance Drought Index (RDI). Water Resour Manag 21:821833
Vasiliades L, Loukas A (2009) Hydrological response to meteorological drought using the Palmer
drought indices in Thessaly, Greece. Desalination 237:321
Vicente-Serrano SM, Lopez-Moreno JI (2005) Hydrological response to different time scales of
climatological drought: an evaluation of the standardized precipitation index in a mountainous
Mediterranean basin. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 9:523533
White DH, Walcott JJ (2009) The role of seasonal indices in monitoring and assessing agricultural
and other droughts: a review. Crop Pasture Sci 60:599616
Wilhite DA, Glantz MH (1985) Understanding the drought phenomenon: the role of definitions.
Water Int 10(3):111120
Wilhite DA, Svoboda MD, Hayes MJ (2007) Understanding the complex impacts of drought: a key
to enhancing drought mitigation and preparedness. Water Resour Manag 21:763774
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) (2000) Early warning systems for drought preparedness
and drought management. Lisboa
Wu H, Soh L-K, Samal A, Chen X-H (2008) Trend analysis of streamflow drought events in
Nebraska. Water Resour Manag 22:145164