GWX — Hydrological Drought — River Low-Flow Extent

Which drought types show a detected increase, and where

Each of the three deficits below at its D2+ (severe or worse) default, against this site's combined detection standard: IPCC's likelihood criterion at each variable's multiple-comparisons-adjusted bar, plus a magnitude-vs-variability check. Meteorological and agricultural drought come from ERA5, hydrological from GloFAS — so where two or three agree, they agree across unrelated data.

Drought type	Global	Africa	Asia	Europe	North America	South America	Oceania
Meteorologicala rainfall deficit	yes	yes	no	no	no	yes	no
Agriculturala root-zone soil-moisture deficit	yes	no*	yes	no	yes	yes	no
Hydrologicala river low-flow deficit	yes	yes	no	no	no	yes	no

no* marks a borderline case that clears the flat 10% bar and misses its adjusted one: Africa agricultural at p=0.066 against 0.051. Reported as what it is rather than rounded into agreement. Every verdict comes from the same computation the panels below render, so this table cannot disagree with them. See the Methodology page for the construction of each index.

Hydrological Drought — River Low-Flow Extent — Asia

Monthly

% of Asia's GloFAS 'pour-point' cells whose 3-month mean river discharge falls at a selectable USDM-equivalent severity level or worse against that cell's same-calendar-month history -- same construction as the global Hydrological Drought panel, scoped to Asia. Unit: % of pour-point cells.

Series

Source: GloFAS v4.0 (Copernicus CEMS Global Flood Awareness System)

Computing trend…

The low-flow counterpart to Asia's Flooding variable, from the same modeled GloFAS discharge record. Hydrological drought lags meteorological drought by months to years, because a catchment's storage buffers a rainfall deficit before streamflow shows it. Starts in 1982: GloFAS's model groundwater store still drains over the reanalysis's first years. See Methodology.