Reclamation Drought Index (RDI)

Reclamation Drought Index (RDI)

 

Index name: Reclamation Drought Index (RDI).

Ease of use: Red.

Origins: The United States Bureau of Reclamation developed this drought index in the mid-1990s as a method to trigger drought emergency relief funds associated with public lands.

Characteristics: Developed to define drought severity as well as duration and can also be used to predict the onset and end of drought periods. It has both wet and dry scales and is calculated at the river basin level, in a similar way to the Surface Water Supply Index (SWSI). RDI has water-demand and temperature components, which allow for the inclusion of evaporation into the index.

Input parameters: Monthly precipitation, snowpack, reservoir levels, streamflow and temperature.

Applications: Used mainly to monitor water supply for a river basins.

Strengths: Very specific to each basin. Unlike SWSI, it accounts for temperature effects on climate. Wet and dry scales allow for monitoring of wet and dry conditions.

Weaknesses: Calculations are made for individual basins, so comparisons are hard to make. Having all the inputs in an operational setting may cause delays in the production of data.

Resources: The characteristics and mathematics are provided in the reference below.

Reference: Weghorst, K., 1996: The Reclamation Drought Index: Guidelines and Practical Applications. Bureau of Reclamation, Denver, CO, USA.

Currently used by: Iran, Greece.

8 Responses

  1. Hello dear all
    I hope all of you are healthy in this pandemic.
    As you know, we need to calculate the related drought indices for monitoring and predicting meteorological droughts, namely, SPI, Z-score, CZI, MCZI, RAI, EDI, DI, and PN.
    I honor to inform you that the software tool I developed for my PhD dissertation about calculating “Meteorological drought Indices” is followed by more than 1000 scientists worldwide. It is such a user-friendly tool. I invite you to apply it in your drought analysis and monitoring. It is a free tool with the name “Meteorological Drought Monitor” (MDM); also, you can download it from https://agrimetsoft.com/MDM.
    Cheers,
    Nasrin Salehnia
    Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea.

  2. Dear Stefanski,
    Unfortunately, the publication you suggested is not free. Could you please send me all the papers regarding the methodology of RDI? I already found some in Persian, but I would prefer to compare with the English versions.

    Sincerely,
    Mehran

  3. Dear Stefanski
    I need to calculation RDI, How can I get the index calculation method?
    could you send the calculation for me?
    Best regards,
    farideh

    1. The RDI calculations can found in the following publication: Weghorst, K., 1996: The Reclamation Drought Index: Guidelines and Practical Applications. Bureau of Reclamation, Denver, CO, USA.

  4. Hi
    I need to calculation RDI. Could you please send me the calculation of this index?
    Best Regards,
    Nasrin

    1. Dear Nasrin,

      Thank you for your comment. I will email some colleagues in the US to get more information on this index. One of the weaknesses of this index is that calculations are made for individual basins, so comparisons are hard to make. Having all the inputs in an operational setting may cause delays in the production of data.

      Best regards,
      Bob Stefanski
      IDMP/WMO

Leave a Reply to ali Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Translate »