Paper Sample on Assessing 30 Years of Meteorological and Drought Trends in Northern Thailand: Implications and Analysis

Abstract

This research studies the situation of drought and meteorology in the northern part of Thailand for the last 30 years. The study areas comprised of three provinces: Phitsanulok, Nakhon Sawan, and Kamphaeng Phet. As such, the principal purpose of the study involves the analysis of the meteorological and drought trends in the Northern region of Thailand since the 1970s. Data from the meteorological stations of these provinces have been collected for analysis. The study used the meteorological Drought Monitor software (MDM) to analyze the drought trends through the Standardized Precipitation Index SPI. From this analysis, we then presented the results through graphs representing the trends in meteorological parameters and drought index. The result showed that drought had been recurrent in these provinces, and the used drought indices showed that SPI is the best drought index for the measurement of drought over the years. From these findings, awareness should be used to foster the need for environmental conservation in a bid to improve environmental protection to enhance the levels of precipitation. As such, a discussion ensues regarding the trends in these parameters and allows the analyst to recommend suggestions that the government, as well as interested stakeholders, may employ to adopt in handling the significant trends in drought and wetness.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Furthermore, World Environmental Day celebrated every year should be fostered by tree planting and environmentally friendly products' consumption among the citizens of Thailand to boost cloud cover and result in proper amounts of precipitation should be fostered to improve the weather conditions in the country. Generally, the annual rainfall measurement of the regions analyzed continues to reduce consistently as the temperatures increase. Such findings reinforce the need to address the topic of global warming. Concerted efforts should be taken by the parties involved to address the projected trend in decreasing rainfall and increasing temperature.

Key Words: Drought, Meteorological data, drought indices, MDM software.

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

It is considered that Thailand has sufficient water sources and a high volume of water catchment. In the near past, most of the water problems during the dry season happen as a regular cycle. However, climate change causes less precipitation. It affects to long term period of the river level volume and underground water. Therefore, the drought problem in Thailand is more frequent and severe, combined with increasing of water requirement, causing the effects to normal livelihood and destroying ecology and environment system.

Drought, by many considered to be the least understood of all significant natural hazards, has also been shown to be the most costly (Wilhite, 1993). It is a long period of unusually low rainfall, especially one that ineptly affects growing or living conditions of plants. Drought has many effects on man's economic activities, human lives, and various elements of the environment, such as the earth's ecosystems (Zamani et al., 2013).

Several drought monitoring indices have been used over the years. However, the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI), recommended by Guttman (1998), remains a popular choice among researchers because it is simple, spatially consistent in its interpretation, probabilistic so that it can be used in risk management and decision analysis, and can be tailored to periods of user's interest. It describes the behavior of only one variable, precipitation.

Understanding the variability of rainfall and the pattern of extremely high or low precipitation is essential for agriculture as well as the economy of the country. It is well established that the rainfall is changing on both the global (Hulme et al., 1998; Lambert et al., 2003; Dore, 2005) and the regional scales (Rodriguez-Puebla et al., 1998; Gemmer et al., 2004; Kayano and Sans' igolo, 2008) due to global warming.

Rising average temperatures, frequent and more intense heat waves due to climate change are affecting human health in several ways. Warmer temperatures diminish air quality by increasing exposure levels of ground-level ozone. Analysis of the trends of temperatures occurring across in the Lower Northern part of Thailand would help in finding trends to predict the average temperatures.

Evaporation from the land surface includes evaporation from the open water surface, soil, shallow groundwater, and water stored in vegetation along with transpiration through plants. The rate of evaporation from the land surface is driven primarily by meteorological controls, mediated by the characteristics of vegetation and soils, and constrained by the amount of water available. Determining evaporation rates is essential for the efficient management of reservoirs and water resources.

In Thailand, water is insufficient, and drought is directly originated from the long delay of rainfall affected to outside irrigated areas. The farmers cultivate their farmland during the rainy season except for the farmland in watershed areas or small scale irrigated areas. The problem of water insufficient originates from outside irrigated areas or even the irrigated areas, there are still chances of drought because of several water consumption activities and the high volume of cultivation.

This study will focus on the Lower Northern Part of Thailand, which includes Phitsanulok, Kamphaeng Phet, and Nakhon Sawan. The area is affected by recurrent drought, and many previous studies have not covered it, hence this research will focus on this area and make the vital analysis.

Problem Statement

Recurrent drought in northern Thailand prompts the need for an aggregated analysis of the patterns of drought and meteorological conditions in the area. While the three selected stations – Phitsanulok, Kamphaeng Phet, and Nakhon Sawan – possess sufficient meteorological information, there is an overarching lack of consensus on a meteorological data analysis methodology for interpreting the abundant data and using them to predict possible future trends in drought in the region.

The current research thereby intends to conduct a grounded analysis of the meteorological data present in the Northern Provinces of Thailand. Such an analysis of data collection methodologies, as well as the implications of the data in informing the drought and precipitation trends in the country, will advise policy on the need for better conceptual approaches to address the persistent climate inconsistencies in the regions. The need for such a grounded study in the area is prompted by the continuing severity of drought in the regions in modern times. Such a trend in increasing meteorological inconsistencies thereby requires the development of better consolidated positivistic backing that will be essential in objectively predicting the trends in such changing climatic and ecological factors. A lack of conclusive information for predicting climate patterns has always impacted the predictive powers of such extreme conditions like drought and extreme conditions of wetness.

Objectives of the study

1. To analyze the meteorological data in the Lower Northern Part of Thailand.
2. To analyze the Drought severity level in the Lower Northern Part of Thailand.

Research Methodology

Collection of data

The research utilized meteorological data (Rainfall, Temperature, and Evaporation) from 1986 to 2015 collected from the meteorological rain gauge stations that are situated in the Lower Northern Part of Thailand. The selected areas provide a sufficient availability of meteorological data for meta-aggregation and analysis.

Data Analysis

The data analysis shall first involve trend recognition and a correlational analysis between the three main variables using Pearson's correlation statistic. The main variables used in this study are temperature, evaporation, and rainfall. Before the correlation analysis, the author presents the trend of meteorological factors through the years from 1980. The correlational analysis then helps to begin the analysis of their sustained fluctuations in the past thirty years in the three selected provinces in Northern Thailand. After the correlation study of the aggregated meteorological data for the three variables, the analyst then used three different meteorological indices to characterize the meteorological drought according to the three variables. The main index used for this analysis was the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). These results are then presented using tables and graphs showing the trends in the meteorological parameters as well as their correlations and the values of the three indices. The three indices will allow the author to infer on the accumulated as well as the yearly drought indices for the three regions in Northern Thailand.

The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was the critical meteorological index model used in this analysis for a variety of reasons. The main reason, however, was the less complicated and more comparable characteristics of the method. While working with data from three separate meteorological stations, the author needed to employ an approach that offers stable and similar drought parameters. Furthermore, this index possesses the ability to measure the wetness or drought factors at different timescales. SPI majorly measures the precipitation index and factor of the drought index measurement process.

The author used the Meteorological Drought Monitor (MDM) software for calculating the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). MDM is a software by Agricultural and Meteorological Software (AgriMetSoft) that is available for purchase from the organization's website. We used the 2018 version of MDM – the MDM 1.0 version for this analysis.

Analysis of Meteorological Data

Analysis of changes and trends of each meteorological data

The tendencies of meteorological statistics, for example, evaporation, temperature, and rainfall were scrutinized based on the data collected from the meteorological rain gauge stations from 1986-2015. The changes in terms of the data patterns were analyzed using summary statistics to determine the measures of central tendency and dispersion.

The research established, checked, and analyzed the relationship between the meteorological data on temperature, rainfall, and evaporation. The relationships were done in Microsoft Excel. The trends of temperature, evaporation, and rainfall from 1986 to 2015 offer a chance for monitoring the respective changes from the years.

The connection between the meteorological data and drought severity level.

The connection linking the change and tendency of the meteorological statistics will be analyzed and scrutinized based on the results about the level of severity of the drought. The Standardized Precipitation Index will be employed to calculate and get reliable data.

The calculation of drought indices applies a combination of meteorological and climatic factors, with precipitation the most critical factor among them for analysis of drought magnitudes. Auspiciously, Thailand weather station-observed precipitation data was recorded over a long period from 1986-2015.