Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Drought in Central Asia from 1981 to 2020

Drought is a meteorological phenomenon that threatens ecosystems, agricultural production, and living conditions. Central Asia highly vulnerable to drought due its special geographic location, water resource shortages, extreme weather conditions, poor management of resources reliance on irrigated agriculture exacerbate the effects drought. In this study, latest version Global Land Data Assimilation System was employed calculate Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index at different time scales during period from 1981 2020. The varimax Rotated Empirical Orthogonal Function applied for subregional delineation patterns in Asia, various methods were comparative analysis spatiotemporal characteristics these Asian subregions. results show vary considerably Over past 40 years, alternating wet dry conditions occurred Asia. North Kazakhstan experienced more events with lower severity. East west differences appear after 2001, becoming drier east wetter. Some regions near lakes, such as Balkhash, Issyk-Kul, Aral Sea, suffer droughts long duration high Tianshan region, northern slopes occur frequently, shorter durations higher intensity peaks. Northwestern China western Mongolia have extensive land grasslands fragile ecosystems become progressively since 2001.