Woodland Restoration Plot Network: Climatic Drought Index Data, Western Sydney Parklands (Western Sydney Regional Park), Australia, 1887-2014
Abstract: The Woodland Restoration Plot Network Drought data package contains Hutchinson’s Drought Indices calculated for the Prospect Reservoir, a location in close proximity of the Woodland Restoration Plot Network plots.
The Hutchinson climatic drought indices were invented by Professor Michael Hutchinson at the Australian National University in 1992. Professor Hutchinson designed two indices to reflect the duration and the severity of agricultural droughts using precipitation data. Professor Hutchinson subsequently collaborated with Mr Ivan Hanigan at LTERN to extend the drought indices with new methods, and a computer program was written to compute the indices using a range of climatic data sources.
The Woodland Restoration Plot Network Drought data package was created from three different data sources:
1) the Bureau of Meteorology Station data 1887-2014,
2) the Australian Water Availability Project’s gridded climate data 1900-2014 and
3) the TERN EMAST gridded climate data 1970-2012.
The project conducted a comparative analysis of the different climatic data sources, which differ in terms of their temporal extent and spatial resolution.
A synopsis of related data packages which have been collected as part of the Woodland Restoration Plot Network’s full program is provided at https://doi.org/10.25911/5c36e5688ff89
>Project funding: Financial support for development of the Drought Index R package was provided by Professor Tony McMichael's "Australia Fellowship" from the National Health and Medical Research Council, via the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University. LTERN funded the implementation of this method on the Woodland Restoration Plot Network site locations in 2015.
Between 2012 and 2018 this project was part of, and funded through the Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTERN) a facility within the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) and supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy.
Type
collection
Title
Woodland Restoration Plot Network: Climatic Drought Index Data, Western Sydney Parklands (Western Sydney Regional Park), Australia, 1887-2014
Alternate Title
Woodland Restoration Plot Network: Climatic Drought Index Data, 1887–2014
Collection Type
Dataset
Access Privileges
Long Term Ecological Research Network
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
10.25911/5c3d42ca6e4a8
Website Address
https://datacommons.anu.edu.au/
Metadata Language
English
Data Language
English
Brief Description
The Woodland Restoration Plot Network Drought data package contains Hutchinson’s Drought Indices calculated for the Prospect Reservoir, a location in close proximity of the Woodland Restoration Plot Network plots.
The Hutchinson climatic drought indices were invented by Professor Michael Hutchinson at the Australian National University in 1992. Professor Hutchinson designed two indices to reflect the duration and the severity of agricultural droughts using precipitation data. Professor Hutchinson subsequently collaborated with Mr Ivan Hanigan at LTERN to extend the drought indices with new methods, and a computer program was written to compute the indices using a range of climatic data sources.
The Woodland Restoration Plot Network Drought data package was created from three different data sources:
1) the Bureau of Meteorology Station data 1887-2014,
2) the Australian Water Availability Project’s gridded climate data 1900-2014 and
3) the TERN EMAST gridded climate data 1970-2012. T
The project conducted a comparative analysis of the different climatic data sources, which differ in terms of their temporal extent and spatial resolution.
A synopsis of related data packages which have been collected as part of the Woodland Restoration Plot Network’s full program is provided at https://doi.org/10.25911/5c36e5688ff89.
Full Description
Abstract: The Woodland Restoration Plot Network Drought data package contains Hutchinson’s Drought Indices calculated for the Prospect Reservoir, a location in close proximity of the Woodland Restoration Plot Network plots.
The Hutchinson climatic drought indices were invented by Professor Michael Hutchinson at the Australian National University in 1992. Professor Hutchinson designed two indices to reflect the duration and the severity of agricultural droughts using precipitation data. Professor Hutchinson subsequently collaborated with Mr Ivan Hanigan at LTERN to extend the drought indices with new methods, and a computer program was written to compute the indices using a range of climatic data sources.
The Woodland Restoration Plot Network Drought data package was created from three different data sources:
1) the Bureau of Meteorology Station data 1887-2014,
2) the Australian Water Availability Project’s gridded climate data 1900-2014 and
3) the TERN EMAST gridded climate data 1970-2012.
The project conducted a comparative analysis of the different climatic data sources, which differ in terms of their temporal extent and spatial resolution.
A synopsis of related data packages which have been collected as part of the Woodland Restoration Plot Network’s full program is provided at https://doi.org/10.25911/5c36e5688ff89
>Project funding: Financial support for development of the Drought Index R package was provided by Professor Tony McMichael's "Australia Fellowship" from the National Health and Medical Research Council, via the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University. LTERN funded the implementation of this method on the Woodland Restoration Plot Network site locations in 2015.
Between 2012 and 2018 this project was part of, and funded through the Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTERN) a facility within the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) and supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy.
Methods
Calculation of Hutchinson’s Drought Indices
1
None
The Woodland Restoration Plot Network Drought data package was created from three different data sources: 1) the Bureau of Meteorology Station data (referred to as the bom_stn source in the data package), 2) the Australian Water Availability Project’s gridded climate data (labelled as awap in the data package) and 3) the TERN EMAST gridded climate data (labelled emast). The project conducted a comparative analysis of the different climatic data sources, which differ in terms of their temporal extent and spatial resolution.
The Drought indices are calculated from the monthly rainfall totals. First these are integrated to rolling 6-monthly totals which are then ranked into percentiles by month and this is rescaled to range between -4 and +4 in keeping with the range of the famous Palmer Index. Mild drought is below -1 in the Palmer index.
In the first index the duration of the drought is calculated. To do this consecutive months below the -1 threshold are counted. This is labelled duration_bom_stn when using the Bureau of Meteorology station data; duration_awap when using Australian Water Availability Project data; and duration_emast when using EMAST grid data. In the original working paper the authors calibrated their indicator to Government Drought Declarations. It was found that after 5 consecutive months a drought was often declared and so this threshold was defined as the beginning of a predicted drought declaration. This is termed the duration_xxx_declared, where xxx refers to the different data source being used to calculate the duration. This variable is set to TRUE when it is a predicted drought and FALSE otherwise. In the original method this cumulative counting step is continued until the rescaled percentiles exceed -1 again. The enhanced method implemented by Hutchinson and Hanigan imposes a more conservative threshold of zero (the median) to break a drought. It is this more stringent drought breaking criterion that is used in the Woodland Restoration Plot Network’s Drought data package.
The second drought index uses a method devised by Hutchinson to calculate the severity of a drought. In this method the rescaled percentile values are integrated using conditional cumulative summation when they fall below the threshold of mild drought. This is labelled the severity_xxx variable in the data package. In the original calibration study the value of -17 was found to be the best predictor of drought declarations, and months below this value are cumulatively summed until the index value exceeds the median again (following Hutchinson and Hanigan’s enhanced implementation). This is labelled the severity_xxx_duration variable.
The original 1992 working paper provides a technical description of the methods used for the original indices:
Smith, D. I, Hutchinson, M. F, & McArthur, R. J. (1992) Climatic and Agricultural Drought: Payments and Policy. (Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia).
The computer software written by Hanigan to implement the enhanced algorithm is available at: https://github.com/ivanhanigan/HutchinsonDroughtIndex and fully described in the paper:
Hanigan, I.C, Butler, C.D, Kokic, P.N & Hutchinson, M.F. (2012). Suicide and drought in New South Wales, Australia, 1970-2007. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume: 109, Issue: 35 (2012) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1112965109
Therefore in summary the variables are defined as:
• duration_bom_stn = Station Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are counted. The count is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• severity_bom_stn = Station Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are summed The summation is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• duration_bom_stn_declared = Station Data: After 5 consecutive months of accumulation the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• severity_bom_stn_declared = Station Data: After the accumulated total of index values reaches -17 the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• duration_awap = AWAP Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are counted. The count is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• severity_awap = AWAP Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are summed The summation is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• duration_awap_declared = AWAP Data: After 5 consecutive months of accumulation the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• severity_awap_declared = AWAP Data: After the accumulated total of index values reaches -17 the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• duration_emast = EMAST Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are counted. The count is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• severity_emast = EMAST Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are summed The summation is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• duration_emast_declared = EMAST Data: After 5 consecutive months of accumulation the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• severity_emast_declared = EMAST Data: After the accumulated total of index values reaches -17 the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
The Drought indices are calculated from the monthly rainfall totals. First these are integrated to rolling 6-monthly totals which are then ranked into percentiles by month and this is rescaled to range between -4 and +4 in keeping with the range of the famous Palmer Index. Mild drought is below -1 in the Palmer index.
In the first index the duration of the drought is calculated. To do this consecutive months below the -1 threshold are counted. This is labelled duration_bom_stn when using the Bureau of Meteorology station data; duration_awap when using Australian Water Availability Project data; and duration_emast when using EMAST grid data. In the original working paper the authors calibrated their indicator to Government Drought Declarations. It was found that after 5 consecutive months a drought was often declared and so this threshold was defined as the beginning of a predicted drought declaration. This is termed the duration_xxx_declared, where xxx refers to the different data source being used to calculate the duration. This variable is set to TRUE when it is a predicted drought and FALSE otherwise. In the original method this cumulative counting step is continued until the rescaled percentiles exceed -1 again. The enhanced method implemented by Hutchinson and Hanigan imposes a more conservative threshold of zero (the median) to break a drought. It is this more stringent drought breaking criterion that is used in the Woodland Restoration Plot Network’s Drought data package.
The second drought index uses a method devised by Hutchinson to calculate the severity of a drought. In this method the rescaled percentile values are integrated using conditional cumulative summation when they fall below the threshold of mild drought. This is labelled the severity_xxx variable in the data package. In the original calibration study the value of -17 was found to be the best predictor of drought declarations, and months below this value are cumulatively summed until the index value exceeds the median again (following Hutchinson and Hanigan’s enhanced implementation). This is labelled the severity_xxx_duration variable.
The original 1992 working paper provides a technical description of the methods used for the original indices:
Smith, D. I, Hutchinson, M. F, & McArthur, R. J. (1992) Climatic and Agricultural Drought: Payments and Policy. (Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia).
The computer software written by Hanigan to implement the enhanced algorithm is available at: https://github.com/ivanhanigan/HutchinsonDroughtIndex and fully described in the paper:
Hanigan, I.C, Butler, C.D, Kokic, P.N & Hutchinson, M.F. (2012). Suicide and drought in New South Wales, Australia, 1970-2007. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume: 109, Issue: 35 (2012) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1112965109
Therefore in summary the variables are defined as:
• duration_bom_stn = Station Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are counted. The count is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• severity_bom_stn = Station Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are summed The summation is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• duration_bom_stn_declared = Station Data: After 5 consecutive months of accumulation the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• severity_bom_stn_declared = Station Data: After the accumulated total of index values reaches -17 the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• duration_awap = AWAP Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are counted. The count is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• severity_awap = AWAP Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are summed The summation is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• duration_awap_declared = AWAP Data: After 5 consecutive months of accumulation the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• severity_awap_declared = AWAP Data: After the accumulated total of index values reaches -17 the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• duration_emast = EMAST Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are counted. The count is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• severity_emast = EMAST Data: Consecutive months where rescaled percentiles are below the -1 threshold are summed The summation is reset when the rescaled percentiles are greater than 0.
• duration_emast_declared = EMAST Data: After 5 consecutive months of accumulation the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
• severity_emast_declared = EMAST Data: After the accumulated total of index values reaches -17 the beginning of a predicted drought is declared.
Download and process Precipitation Data for Prospect Reservoir Meteorological Station Data
2
Site name: PROSPECT RESERVOIR Site number: 067019
Commenced: 1887
Latitude: 33.82° S Longitude: 150.91° E
Elevation: 61 m
Commenced: 1887
Latitude: 33.82° S Longitude: 150.91° E
Elevation: 61 m
Monthly Precipitation Data were downloaded and processed from the Prospect Reservoir BoM station (Site name: PROSPECT RESERVOIR, Site number: 067019)
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_067019.shtml
The copyright for the source data supplied by the Bureau of Meteorology is held in the Commonwealth of Australia and this derivative work must duly give acknowledgement of the source in reference to the data.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_067019.shtml
The copyright for the source data supplied by the Bureau of Meteorology is held in the Commonwealth of Australia and this derivative work must duly give acknowledgement of the source in reference to the data.
Download and process Climate Grid Data: Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP) data.
3
None
The middle of the reservoir was used for the gridded data analysis (2.3km away from BoM Station Location). For the pixel the AWAP grid data were downloaded and processed. The Bureau of Meteorology has generated a range of gridded meteorological datasets for Australia as a contribution to the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP). These include monthly precipitation from 1900 to the present (http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/). Documentation is at http://www.bom.gov.au/amm/docs/2009/jones.pdf.
The copyright for the source data supplied by the Bureau of Meteorology is held in the Commonwealth of Australia and this derivative work must duly give acknowledgement of the source in reference to the data.
The copyright for the source data supplied by the Bureau of Meteorology is held in the Commonwealth of Australia and this derivative work must duly give acknowledgement of the source in reference to the data.
Download and process Climate Grid Data: TERN Ecosystem Modelling and Scaling Infrastructure (eMAST) data.
4
None
For the pixel in the middle of the reservoir the EMAST grid data were downloaded and processed. The climatic drought indices are derived from monthly total accumulated precipitation of each month, for the Australian continent between 1970-2012. The input data were modelled using ANUClimate 1.0.
As this is a derivative product it must include the following citation and an email notification has been sent (9th April 2015 to eMAST.data@mq.edu.au).
The citation for the source data is: Michael Hutchinson, Tingbao Xu, 2014. Monthly total precipitation: ANUClimate 1.0, 0.01 degree, Australian Coverage, 1970-2012. Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Obtained from http://dap.nci.org.au, made available by the Ecosystem Modelling and Scaling Infrastructure (eMAST, http://www.emast.org.au) of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN, http://www.tern.org.au). Accessed 23 March 2015
URI: http://datamgt.nci.org.au:8080/geonetwork/srv/en/metadata.show?uuid=6c8c221d-1e13-4a8f-bb91-858fa341d0d4
As this is a derivative product it must include the following citation and an email notification has been sent (9th April 2015 to eMAST.data@mq.edu.au).
The citation for the source data is: Michael Hutchinson, Tingbao Xu, 2014. Monthly total precipitation: ANUClimate 1.0, 0.01 degree, Australian Coverage, 1970-2012. Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Obtained from http://dap.nci.org.au, made available by the Ecosystem Modelling and Scaling Infrastructure (eMAST, http://www.emast.org.au) of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN, http://www.tern.org.au). Accessed 23 March 2015
URI: http://datamgt.nci.org.au:8080/geonetwork/srv/en/metadata.show?uuid=6c8c221d-1e13-4a8f-bb91-858fa341d0d4
File Descriptions
kwrt_weather_drought_1887_2014_p141_predicted_declarations.csv
| duration_awap |
| ||||||||
| duration_awap_declared |
| ||||||||
| duration_bom_stn |
| ||||||||
| duration_bom_stn_declared |
| ||||||||
| duration_emast |
| ||||||||
| duration_emast_declared |
| ||||||||
| month |
| ||||||||
| severity_awap |
| ||||||||
| severity_awap_declared |
| ||||||||
| severity_bom_stn |
| ||||||||
| severity_bom_stn_declared |
| ||||||||
| severity_emast |
| ||||||||
| severity_emast_declared |
| ||||||||
| year |
|
Contact Email
david.keith@environment.nsw.gov.au;
christopher.simpson@unsw.edu.au;
k.wilkins@unsw.edu.au;
mark.tozer@environment.nsw.gov.au;
r.woodward@unsw.edu.au;
david.keith@unsw.edu.au
Contact Address
Australian Wetlands, Rivers and Landscapes Centre,
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences,
University of New South Wales
SYDNEY, NSW, 2052
Australia
Contact Phone Number
+61 2 9995 5000;
+61 409 159 334;
+61 2 9385 8435;
+61 2 9585 6496;
+61 2 9585 6051, 0428 810 214;
+61 2 9385 2111;
+61 427 856 498
Principal Investigator
David Keith
Supervisors
David Keith
Collaborators
Ivan Hanigan;
Michael Nash;
Chris Simpson;
Katy Wilkins;
Mark Tozer;
Renee Woodward
Fields of Research
0599 - Other Environmental Sciences
Keywords
GCMD:Earth Science > Atmosphere > Precipitation > Rain;
LTERN Monitoring Theme:On plot weather;
LTERN Monitoring Theme:Climate change;
keyword:Rainfall data;
keyword:Precipitation;
keyword:Drought;
Woodland Restoration;
Climatic Drought Index Data
Type of Research Activity
Strategic basic research
Date Coverage
2014
1887
Geospatial Location
Western Sydney Parklands (Western Sydney Regional Park), Australia
text
northlimit = -33.81607; southlimit = -33.82607; westlimit = 150.88792; eastLimit = 150.89792
iso19139dcmiBox
Date of data creation
2015-04-27
Year of data publication
2015
Creator(s) for Citation
Keith
David
Simpson
Chris
Wilkins
Katy
Tozer
Mark
Williams
Dick
Publisher for Citation
The Australian National University Data Commons
Other Related Identifiers
MorphoId:ltern2.205;
PackageId:141
Access Rights
Special Conditions: Prior to publication of research utilising this data, the data provider (David Keith) requests consultation.
Access Rights Type
Open
Rights held in and over the data
reative Commons Licence (CC BY- Attribution) is assigned to this data. Details of the licence can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Licence Type
CC-BY - Attribution (Version 4)
Licence
LTERN Deed: 13
Date of execution: 2014-04-30
Data Location
https://datacommons.anu.edu.au
Retention Period
Indefinitely
Data Management Plan
No
Status: Published
Published to:
Published to:
- Australian National University
- Australian National Data Service
Related items
- hasAssociationWith:
Woodland Restoration Plot Network: Sydney Basin data packages, 1992-2018 [anudc:5558] - hasAssociationWith:
Michael Nash [anudc:5610] - hasAssociationWith:
David Keith [anudc:5578] - hasAssociationWith:
Ivan Hanigan [anudc:5593]