Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Century Of Drought In HawaiʻI: Geospatial Analysis And Synthesis Across Hydrological, Ecological, And Socioeconomic Scales, Abby G. Frazier, Christian P. Giardina, Thomas W. Giambelluca, Laura Brewington, Yi Leng Chen, Pao Shin Chu, Lucas Berio Fortini, Danielle Hall, David A. Helweg, Victoria W. Keener, Ryan J. Longman, Matthew P. Lucas, Alan Mair, Delwyn S. Oki, Julian J. Reyes, Stephanie G. Yelenik, Clay Trauernicht

Geography

Drought is a prominent feature of Hawaiʻi’s climate. However, it has been over 30 years since the last comprehensive meteorological drought analysis, and recent drying trends have emphasized the need to better understand drought dynamics and multi-sector effects in Hawaiʻi. Here, we provide a comprehensive synthesis of past drought effects in Hawaiʻi that we integrate with geospatial analysis of drought characteristics using a newly developed 100-year (1920–2019) gridded Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) dataset. The synthesis examines past droughts classified into five categories: Meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, ecological, and socioeconomic drought. Results show that drought duration and magnitude have increased significantly, consistent …