Introduction
Drought is one of the extreme climatic events with important consequences for society. Unlike other weather events such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, with distributions rather restricted in the spatial and temporal scales, droughts present regimes more difficult to determine with regard to its duration; and its area of influence can be substantially larger than that for events mentioned above.
Another difficulty in the case of drought, compared with the rest of extreme weather events, is to achieve a consensus on its definition. This adds to the difficulty of defining methods to determine, quantify, estimate or predict this kind of events.
Moreover, drought is not a static entity that can be expressed in terms of average values based on historical records. The trends with respect to global climate change and the sustained increase in the water demands by society results in complex scenarios with dynamic relationships.
One factor aggravating the problem of the vulnerability of society in case of drought, apart from the possible definitions of drought that is adopted, is the uncertainty in estimating their spatial and temporal scale. There are several approaches aimed at the phenomenon of drought, such as indicators for different spatial and temporal scales as well as complex simulation models designed to support early warning systems for drought. Independent of the approach, a common goal is the gradual reduction of uncertainty.
In this context, rather than the static situation related to knowing that a specific site is located in an area vulnerable to extreme events of drought, is the possibility of establishing how often or defining what is the probability of a drought with certain magnitude to occur. One possibility like this, however, is subject to one of the most common restrictions in the field of hydrologic analysis, which is the lack of an adequate source of records for estimating extreme events.
For these reasons, it is essential in arid and semi-arid areas, to use methodologies that allow more efficient use of available information for the purposes of estimating more accurately the probability associated with an event of drought and can be used in generating a map to an appropriate scale that facilitates decision-making. The Regional Frequency Analysis methodology is the best way of responding to these requirements and the purpose of the project, which is described here, is to promote professional skills in various institutions to tackle the task of developing a Drought Atlas for arid and semiarid zones of Latin America and the Caribbean.
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Objectives
The objective of the project is to analyze the data of precipitation of the countries involved and produce a statistical analysis for the various subregions allowing to answer the following questions:
How often droughts are observed?
What is the probability that the current drought will end in X months?
How long will the drought last for which we must prepare?
What is the frequency of maximum drought intensity observed?
The answers to these questions serve as as an input to the planning and to form the basis of a decision-making system on the issue of drought.
Activities Organization
This activity is developed in conjunction with the Institute for Water Resources (IWR) of the Army Corps of Engineers-USA with whom CAZALAC signed an agreement during 2007. It involves a professional from the IWR and a Yale professor, Dr.. James Wallis, who was part of the expert group that developed the Atlas of US Drought:
(Http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/iwr/atlas/Atlasintro.htm)
During 25th and 26th of March 2008 a workshop was held in Santiago, bringing together professionals from Argentina, Peru and Chile. In the workshop, Dr. James Wallis (one of the pioneers in using the methodology of the Regional Frequency Analysis, which was prepared USA Drought Atlas), introduced the participants to the methodology used in the development of a Drought Atlas, and the main difficulties involved as well as proposing solutions for pilot cases brought by each of the countries. The project was launched in a pilot area of Argentina, Peru and Chile.
Details of the workshop, participants, activities and commitments can be downloaded in pdf format.
First Workhop participants
USA:
Jason Giovannettone - IWR, jason.p.giovannettone@usace.army.mil
James Wallis - University of Yale, james.wallis@yale.edu
Argentina:
María Cristina Moyano - Instituto Nacional del Agua (INA), cmoyano@ina.gov.ar, cmoyano@fibertel.com.ar
Raúl Díaz - Instituto de Clima y Agua - INTA, rdiaz@cnia.inta.gov.ar, dyaz.raul@gmail.com
Perú:
Oscar Felipe Obando - Servicio Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología (SENAMHI), ofelipe@senamhi.gob.pe
Julia Acuña Azarte - Servicio Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología (SENAMHI), jacuna@senamhi.gob.pe
Chile:
Alejandro León - Universidad de Chile, aleon-a@uchile.cl
Guillermo Tapia - Dirección General de Aguas, guillermo.tapia.m@mop.gov.cl
Estefanía Rojas - Dirección General de Aguas, estefania.rojas@mop.gov.cl
Claudia Villarroel - Dirección Meteorológica de Chile, cvilla@meteochile.cl
Juan Pizarro - Dirección Meteorológica de Chile
Chile:
Guido Soto - CAZALAC, gsoto@cazalac.org
Jorge Nuñez - CAZALAC, jnunez@cazalac.org
Manuel Soto - CAZALAC, msoto@cazalac.org
Koen Verbist - U.Gante. KVerbist@cazalac.org
Second Workshop on Drought Atlas, SENAMHI Lima, Peru
During the days March 31 and April 2, 2009 was the second Workshop on Drought Atlas Project in the building of the National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology of Peru (SENAMHI). The workshop was branded as a success by the attendees, about 27 professionals, mostly from SENAMHI but also included participants from Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico.
The workshop was attended by Drs James Wallis and Melvin Schaefer, as well as the representative of the IWR, Dr. Guillermo Mendoza. Both claimed to have been deeply impressed with the organization. The activity was aimed to present the project progress as well as training in the application of the methodology with the support of the LRAP software, especially developed in the framework of this project.
The following is a sample of images that clearly reflect the success of this second workshop.
Also, we highlight the major milestones of the activity:
- Delivery of a copy of the LRAP software for each participant in the project. These are the only 5 copies in the world, allowing fully develop the regional frequency analysis quickly and easily. This puts CAZALAC project as a world leader in the use of this methodology with last generation supporting tools.
- Incorporation of Mexico and Ecuador to the project, opening the possibility of new pilot areas within countries and as new participants in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Organization of a workshop with high international standard, at the level of European countries, resulting in high reference level for future activities.
Participants at the second Workshop
USA:
James Wallis - University of Yale, james.wallis@yale.edu
Melvin Schefer – MGS Engineering Consultans, Olympia, WA
Guillermo Mendoza - IWR
Argentina:
María Cristina Moyano - Instituto Nacional del Agua (INA), cmoyano@ina.gov.ar, cmoyano@fibertel.com.ar
Sandra Flores: s.sambarino@gmail.com
Perú:
Juan Julio Ordoñez - SENAMHI, Jordonez@senamhi.gob.pe
Oscar Felipe Obando - SENAMHI, ofelipe@senamhi.gob.pe
Julia Acuña Azarte - SENAMHI, jacuna@senamhi.gob.pe
Darwin Santos Villar – Bachiller, darwinbaku@hotmail.com
Gladis Chamorro de Rodríguez- SENAMHI, gchamorro@senamhi.gob.pe
José Ferreira Gómez – SENAMHI, jferreyra@senamhi.gob.pe
Waldo Lavado Casimiro – SENAMHI, wlavado@senamhi.gob.pe
Ricardo Rosas Lujan – SENAMHI, rrosas@senamhi.gob.pe
Wilson Suarez Alayza – SENAMHI, wilsuarez@hotmail.com
Hector Vera Arevalo – SENAMHI, hvera@senamhi.gob.pe
Luis Vera Hernandez – SENAMHI, lvera@senamhi.gob.pe
Ricardo Villasis Cuestas – SENAMHI, rvillasis@senamhi.gob.pe
Karim Quevedo Lizaña – SENAMHI, kquevedo@senamhi.gob.pe
Yolanda Lapa – SENAMHI, alapa@senamhi.gob.pe
Dra Elyzabeth Silvestre – SENAMHI, esilvestre@sanamhi.gob.pe
Juan Arboleda – SENAMHI, jarboleda@senamhi.gob.pe
Chile:
Luis Morales - Universidad de Chile, lmorales@uchile.cl
Raul Naranjo - Universidad de Chile, raul.naranjo.t@gmail.com
Guido Soto - CAZALAC, gsoto@cazalac.org
Jorge Nuñez - CAZALAC, jnunez@cazalac.org
Koen Verbist - U.Gante. KVerbist@cazalac.org
México
Michelle Hallack-Alegria – Universidad de Baja California, mhallack@mtu.edu
Ecuador
Fanny Friend Montesdeoca – INAMHI, fannyfriendm@yahoo.com
Lima Workshop Programme (Español) 
(138 KB)
Lima Workshop Programme (English) (51 KB)
Drought Atlas forum
With the aim of providing a forum for discussion and exchange of experiences, news and information on the development of the project, we put at your disposal the forum Atlas Drought LAC / Drought Atlas in LAC.
Go to the forum...
