Drought events at different timescales in southern Italy (Calabria)

This study reports an analysis of the spatial drought patterns for a region of southern Italy (Calabria) based on a homogenous monthly precipitation data set of 129 rain gauges for the period 1916-2006. Drought was expressed using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), and drought events were analyzed using both the short-time (3 and 6 months) and the long-time (12 and 24 months) SPI. In particular, in order to characterize the SPI spatial pattern, index data of the three most severe drought events were interpolated and mapped using a geostatistical approach. Results show that these heavy drought episodes have widely affected the Calabria region and the drought that occurred in 2002 was the worst in terms of spatial extent both at short- and long-time scales.