Ali FAGHFOURI, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Guillaume FORTIN, Université de Moncton, Canada
Daniel GERMAIN, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Nowadays, droughts have been disastrous effects worldwide including in some provinces of Canada. New Brunswick (NB), as one of the Maritime and Atlantic Canadian provinces, periodically facing severe drought and dry conditions due to long-term precipitation deficits, dry summer months and climate change effects. In this research, in order to understand the consequences of droughts in the context of NB, four appropriate drought indices as Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardised Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and Standardized Evapotranspiration Deficit Index (SEDI) were applied to ten hydrological stations across NB from 1971 to 2020. Furthermore, advanced statistical methods, including the Mann-Kendall test, Sen's slope estimator were utilized to perform the trend analysis using the calculated drought indices for the annual, seasonal and monthly periods based on each station for the entire timeframe. In addition, to investigate the climate change effects on future drought conditions in NB, the fifth-generation Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5) was used. RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, as suitable climate change scenarios, were selected to calculate future drought episodes for selected periods 2050 and 2100. The results of the study identified the most vulnerable drought areas and periods in NB, provided recommendations to mitigate the adverse effects of droughts throughout the province, represented drought indices as updated novel maps and recognized the severity of droughts for observed and future climate data using trend analysis according to annual, seasonal and monthly timescales.
Keywords: Drought indices|Trend analysis|Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5)|Future drought episodes|New Brunswick
A103223GF