Drought Forecasting Using Stochastic Models in a Hyper-Arid Climate

Drought forecasting plays a crucial role in drought mitigation actions. Thus, this research deals with linear stochastic models (autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA)) as a suitable tool to forecast drought. Several ARIMA models are developed for drought forecasting using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) in a hyper-arid climate. The results reveal that all developed ARIMA models demonstrate the potential ability to forecast drought over different time scales. In these models, the p, d, q, P, D and Q values are quite similar for the same SPEI time scale. This is in correspondence with autoregressive (AR) and moving average (MA) parameter estimate values, which are also similar. Therefore, the ARIMA model (1, 1, 0) (2, 0, 1) could be considered as a general model for the Al Qassim region. Meanwhile, the ARIMA model (1, 0, 3) (0, 0, 0) at 3-SPEI and the ARIMA model (1, 1, 1) (2, 0, 1) at 24-SPEI could be generalized for the Hail region. The ARIMA models at the 24-SPEI time scale is the best forecasting models with high R2 (more than 0.9) and lower values of RMSE and MAE, while they are the least forecasting at the 3-SPEI time scale. Accordingly, this study recommends that ARIMA models can be very useful tools for drought forecasting that can help water resource managers and planners to take precautions considering the severity of drought in advance.