Understanding run theory for evaluating hydrologic drought in the Wadi Mina Basin (Algeria): A historical analysis

Drought is a natural disaster characterised as precipitation much lower than the precipitation reported in actual periods. Many studies characterized drought as meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, or socioeconomic. When there is a long-term shortage of precipitation, deficits in surface and ground waters occur. In this study, a hydrological drought analysis has been performed for Wadi Mina Basin (4900 km2), which is the biggest sub-basin in Cheliff Basin, using the Streamflow Drought Index (SDI) for the time scales of 3, 6, 9, and 12-month. Monthly mean streamflow records for 05 stations are obtained from the National Water Resources Agency. The obtained SDI values were subjected to Run analysis and drought duration and severity values were calculated. According to the analysis, it has been observed that the maximum (duration: 70 months, severity: 92.78) and average (duration: 31 months, severity: 31.28) droughts occurred at the Sidi AEK Djillali station on a 12-month time scale. The average drought severity was 6.34, with a maximum value of 56.71 on a monthly time scale. However, on a 12-month time scale, the average drought severity increased to 31.28, with a maximum value of 92.78. Therefore, it can be said that the drought severity has increased with the increase in the time scale. When the temporal changes of drought indices are evaluated, it is noteworthy that extraordinary droughts prevailed in the basin in 2000 and 2007. When the scatter diagrams of drought characteristics were examined, it was seen that there was a significant linear relationship between drought duration and severity. In addition, the highest correlation was observed at the 9-month time scale at Ain Hamara (R:0.964) and Oued Abtal (R:0.904) stations. In contrast, the highest correlation was observed at the 12-month time scale at Sidi AEK Djillali (R:0.980) and Takhmaret (R:0.969) stations. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature 2024.