Assessing of future drought in the Canary Island

<p>Drought is one of the main natural phenomenon that has a significant impact on agricultural, economic and environmental. In the Canary Islands, drought events are of great importance due to overexploitation of water resources.&#160; This study analyses climate change projections in terms of frequency, duration, and severity of future drought with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model driven by some Coupled Models Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) simulations, for three periods, until the end of the century, and for two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Projected changes are obtained using two well-established drought indices; the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) at two different time scales (3 and 12 months). Extreme drought (wet) events are considered when SPI is lower (higher) than -2 (2). The results show an increase of extreme drought events by the end of this century for both emission scenarios, with respect to the reference period (1980-2009) and an uneven impact of altitude in drought. The threshold of extreme dry (wet) decreases from 14.2 to 11.1 mm/year (367.4 to 290.0 mm/year) at the altitude interval of 0-400 m, and from 11.7 to 0.5 mm/year (1546.2 to 1074.2 mm/year) at elevations higher than 2100 m.</p><p>&#160;</p>