An analysis of drought and its relationship with an agricultural area in the watershed of Krueng Aceh, Indonesia

Azmeri, Asri Syahrial

Abstract: In Indonesia, apart from Java Island, there is a scarcity of drought research. Therefore it is important to apply the results of the drought analysis, so as to anticipate an agricultural drought. This research aims are to calculate the drought index with the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), to compare SPI with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), river discharge and extensive rice fields affected by crop failure; to depict a map of drought spatial distribution. The worst agricultural drought value of SPI-6, displayed by Indrapuri post in November 2008, is about -5.13. Meanwhile SPI-12 showed the worst hydrological drought happening in November 2008 by -3.51 in Indrapuri post. The worst drought duration occurred in Blang Bintang, lasted for 34 months. The analysis results show that there is no significant relationship between the value of the SPI with SOI and IOD, so that it can be said that rainfall patterns in the watershed of Krueng Aceh are not influenced directly by the SOI or IOD. Relationship of the SPI with discharge is also not sufficiently significant, with the greatest relationship of 0.61 on Indrapuri post. The SPI value also does not show a direct relationship with rice fields affected by the drought.

Keywords: agricultural drought; drought; hydrological drought; IOD; SOI; SPI

Date published: 2018-11-06