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Mapping drought risk in Indonesia related to El-Niño hazard

Conference Paper · May 2016

DOI: 10.1063/1.4947413

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Supari Supari Robi Muharsyah

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 Mapping drought risk in Indonesia related to El-Niño hazard
Supari, R. Muharsyah, and A. Sopaheluwakan

Citation: AIP Conference Proceedings 1730, 070001 (2016); doi: 10.1063/1.4947413

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4947413
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/proceeding/aipcp/1730?ver=pdfcov
Published by the AIP Publishing

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 Mapping Drought Risk in Indonesia Related to El-Niño
Hazard
Supari1,2,a) , R Muharsyah1 and A Sopaheluwakan1
1
Indonesia Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics BMKG, Jl Angkasa I No 2 Kemayoran, Jakarta,
Indonesia.
2
School of Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences, National University of Malaysia, 43600 UKM, Bangi
Selangor, Malaysia.
a)
Corresponding author: supari@bmkg.go.id

Abstract. This work is aimed to identify areas in the country that are at high propensity to the impact of global climate phenomenon
i.e. El-Nino. An affected area is recognized when rainfall decreases up to below normal condition which frequently leads drought
event. For this purpose, two packages of gridded rainfall data at monthly basis with 0.5 spatial resolutions for 1950 2010 period
were used, e.g. GPCC Full Data Reanalysis V.6 (product of Global Precipitation Climatology Centre) and CRU TS3.22 (product
of Climatic Research Unit). El-Nino years were labelled based on Oceanic Nino Index, ONI. We applied frequency analysis to
quantify the chance of El-Nino impact. GPCC data was found more accurate in representing rainfall observation than CRU data
based on correlation test against station data. The results indicate the strong spatial and temporal dependencies of El-Nino impact.
During peak of rainy and first transitional season (DJF and MAM), the probability to be affected by El-Nino is mostly less than
20% over whole country In contrast, July-October are months where areas with high and very high risk were observed over many
regions such as Southern part of Sumatera, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua. Further investigation at province level
found that the timing of El-Nino impact starts in June. These results are potential to improve national capacity in risk management
related to weather-climate hazards.

INTRODUCTION

The term El-Nino is generally considered to characterize an annual weak warm ocean current that propagates south-
ward along the coast of Peru and Ecuador about Christmastime. This coastal warming associates with a much more
extensive anomalous ocean warming in the east and central Pacific Basin, and forms the link with the anomalous global
climate patterns [1]. El-Nino therefore, refers to oceanic component only for scientist. While atmospheric component
of this phenomenon is termed as the Southern Oscillation. It is called ENSO, short for El NinoSouthern Oscillation,
when those two components collaborate together. However, for the public, those all components, anomalies of ocean
and atmosphere are called as simple single term, El-Nino [1].
ENSO is well known as dominant mode of inter-annual global climate variability [2]. Even though it originates
in the tropical Pacific, ENSO affects climate conditions globally. Warming in the eastern equatorial Pacific reduces
the contrast of sea level pressure which consequently weakens the trade winds. The atmospheric response is clearly
identified where convective activity moves western Pacific toward the central or eastern Pacific, following the east-
ward massive migration of positive SST anomalies. This condition suppresses rainfall in western Pacific regions [3],
including Indonesia. ENSO seems to affect global temperature, not tropical climate only, as the ocean transfers heat
to the atmosphere, especially during and following El-Nino [4].
Rainfall variability over Indonesia related to ENSO has been studied by many researchers. The main characteris-
tic during El-Nino years is a drier condition (below normal rainfall) especially over the monsoonal region [5], where
rainfall reductions over some regions is more than 100% or totally dry [6]. The intensity of El-Nino prescribes how
far the below normal rainfall condition is. For strong El-Nino cases such as 1997/1998 event, the dry condition even
could lead drought. The El-Nino impact however, is more spatially coherent during September-October-November,
SON than during December-January-February, DJF - the wet season [7]. During the peak of wet season for example, it

The 5th International Symposium on Earthhazard and Disaster Mitigation

AIP Conf. Proc. 1730, 070001-1–070001-7; doi: 10.1063/1.4947413
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1377-1/$30.00

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 was documented that there is a contrast precipitation anomalies associated with El-Nino, between wet southern moun-
tainous versus dry northern plains over Java Island [8]. Using RegCM3 simulation, it was found that the interaction
between the El-Ninoinduced monsoonal wind anomalies and the island/mountain-induced local diurnal cycle of winds
and precipitation is responsible for the contrast. The significant variability in the El-Nino -monsoon relationship was
found not only over Java Island but also over whole Maritime Continent and its vicinity [9].
Drought in Indonesia mostly relates to three conditions i.e. the warm phase of ENSO [10, 11], the negative
phase of Dipole Mode event [12] and the negative anomaly of SST surround Indonesia [13]. A considerably skilful
simple empirical forecast model for predicting drought over Java Island developed using the DMI in combination
with Ni no-3.4 SSTs [12], shows that those two indicators have significant role on stimulating drought. The previous
researches however, mostly focused on investigating mechanism behind of drought. Other studies investigated the
way to monitor drought either using remote sensing data such [14] or using rainfall series such [15]. A national view
of drought vulnerable area that is stimulated particularly by El-Nino is not investigated yet. This paper is therefore
intended to extend previous studies by exploring global rainfall dataset to identify El-Nino affected area dynamically,
month by month.

DATA AND METHOD

Two package of gridded rainfall data were used for this research. The first is GPCC (Global Precipitation Climatology
Centre) Full Data Reanalysis Version 6, 0.5◦ X0.5◦ resolution [16], a monthly global land-surface precipitation based
on the 67,200 stations world-wide. It is the largest available monthly precipitation station database in the world. The
GPCC is operated by Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD, National Meteorological Service of Germany). In this work
however, GPCC Precipitation data is provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their
web site (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/).
To assess the uncertainty of gridded data, we also employed another data package i.e. CRU TS3.22 [17], a new
version of CRU data. CRU TS data (time series) is a product by Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia,
consisting of many variables interpolated from more than 4000 weather stations distributed around the world. CRU
TS3.22 is the last updated data which cover data from Jan 1901 Dec 2013. In addition, 30 years of monthly rainfall
observations (1981 - 2010) from 114 BMKG Stations were used to assess the performance of those two gridded
rainfall data using simultaneously temporal correlation test.
To identify El-Nino years and classify the intensity of events, we selected Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) provided
by CPC-NOAA. It is the index calculated using three month running mean of SST anomalies in the east-central
equatorial Pacific Ocean namely the Nino 3.4 region (5N-5S, 120-170W). El-Nino events are defined as minimum
of 5 consecutive overlapping 3-month periods at or above the +0.5 o . The ERSST.v2, Extended Reconstructed Sea
Surface Temperature Version 2 [18] is used by NOAA to calculate this index. Only moderate to strong El-Nino events
(ONI index more than 1◦ ) were analysed, since in general, weak El-Nino events contribute minor impact to Indonesia
rainfall.
We performed frequency analysis to identify how often the area is affected by El-Nino. An area is classified as
affected when it experiences below normal rainfall during El-Nino period. First, El-Nino years were identified, and
for those El-Nino years, monthly rainfall data were analysed in term of its percentage to the long term average (1950
2010). We counted number of month with rainfall less than 33% of normal (below normal rainfall). For every single
grid, probability to be affected by El-Nino is represented by the ratio of number of below normal examined month
(January, for example) to total number of El-Nino years involving the examined month. This probability, which express
the rate of El- Nino occurrence giving obvious impact, provide more directly relevant information for risk assessment
and management than do statistics such as correlations or composites [2].
We also investigated the status of every province by simply averaging the probability value over all grids covered
by each province. This enables us to identify specifically the timing and duration of El-Nino impact for each province
so that local government will be able to design better risk management.
GIS approach was run then to map spatial distribution of frequency of El-Nino impact. For easy interpretation,
the probability to be affected by El-Nino was transformed to the risk levels i.e. very low, low, moderate, high and
very high. Area with probability less than 20% is labelled as very low risk level for drought. The 20% interval of
probability is used then to classify the next upper levels.

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 FIGURE 1. Spatial distribution of GPCC and CRU grid boxes overlaid by BMKG Stations.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

It was identified that during 1950 2010, there were 14 El-Nino years, 8 out of them were moderate events i.e. 1951,
1963, 1968, 1986, 1991, 1994, 2002, 2009 and the remains 6 events were strong events i.e. 1957, 1965, 1972, 1982,
1987 and 1997. The El-Nino events started mostly in May - June and lasted for around one year cycle.
Before analysing the impact of El-Nino, it is necessary to assess the performance of gridded data used in this
study. The correlation test of GPCC and CRU data versus station data shows that those gridded data have good
agreement with observation data for western part of country (Sumatera and Java Island) but they perform differently
for central and eastern part (figure not shown). In general, the GPCC more accurately represents observation data.
The correlation coefficients calculated against 114 station data are mostly more than 0.6. Low correlation coefficients
(¡ 0.5) are observed only for Papua. For CRU data, on the other hand, low correlation coefficients were found for
Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua. The difference of gridding scheme and number of stations involved in the
gridding process [16, 17] might be key sources of this discrepancy.
When tested against Nino 3.4 index, those two gridded data show considerably similar feature. Rainfall over the
country is mainly characterized by significantly negative correlation with SST anomalyof Nino 3.4 region (Figure
2) confirming a tendency of drier condition when El-Nino occurs [5, 6, 7, 8, 11]. Compared to the western part, the
eastern part of the country exhibits stronger correlation suggesting more robust effect of El-Nino in this area.
Interestingly, we observed that Northern and Central part of Sumatera and also West Kalimantan show inverse
feature, a positive correlation but mostly not significant (Figure 2). This is a region classified as Region B (semi
monsoonal region) [5], where rainfall variability is mostly affected by northward southward movement of ITCZ (the
inter-tropical convergence zone) typified principally by two peaks of monthly rainfall, in March-April-May (MAM)
and in October-November (ON). The second peak (ON) lasts when the eastern part of country is still in the dry season
in which El-Nino is known contributing obvious impact [6].
Overall, the results of frequency analysis indicate the strong spatial and temporal dependencies of El-Nino impact
both for GPCC and CRU data. During peak of rainy and first transitional season (DJF and MAM), the probability to be
affected by El-Nino is mostly less than 20% over whole country (Figure 3). Except for East Kalimantan and Northern
part of Sulawesi, the El-Nino seems to give no impact to the country during this period. It is known that during DJF
and MAM, the intensity of anomalous surface easterlies that is driven by warm SST in the Pacific basin is reduced by
the monsoonal wind (wet north-westerly wind) that blows in the opposite direction [12]. This condition obscures the
impact of El-Nino even though the monsoonal rainfall is slightly reduced.
In contrast, during dry season we observed that El-Nino has high probability to affect the country, in agreement
with previous studies [6, 7, 11]. In June, only some areas were identified as high risk of El-Nino impact (Figure
3). However, the extent of those areas increase drastically in July, mostly observed in Sumatera, Kalimantan and

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 FIGURE 2. Spatial distribution of simultaneously temporal correlation between GPCC data and SST anomaly of Nino 3.4. Grid
boxes with dot represent area where correlation is significant at 95% confidence level.

Sulawesi. September and October are months where areas with high and very high risk were observed almost over
whole country. Many regions i.e. Bangka Belitung, Central Kalimantan, Central and Southeast Sulawesi, Maluku and
West Papua were identified as very high risk areas meaning that every El-Nino event is likely to reduce rainfall up to
below normal condition (Figure 3). During these months, the intensity of monsoonal wind (dry south-easterly wind)
is increased by the anomalous surface easterlies and consequently cools Indonesian water [12] that suppress rainfall
in the next process. In November, areas with high risk of El-Nino impact were still observed particularly inthe south-
eastern part of the country (East Java, Bali, West and East Nusa Tenggara) since November is still dry season over
these regions.
Table 1 provides information on the probability of each province related to El-Nino impact based on GPCP data
(1950 2010). In general, July November are months where many provinces are identified at high or very high risk
level of drought (bold value in Table 1). The probability of El-Nino impact starts to increase in June with 3 provinces
detected at high risk level i.e. South Kalimantan, West Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi. In July, the probability
increases considerably where 17 provinces are at high risk level. This continue until August, September and October.
There are even, 4 and 2 provinces that is identified at very high risk level in September and October, respectively.
These results suggest that there should be more attention to anticipate the drought in July October in an El-Nino year.
In November, the probability is still high but only for 7 provinces i.e. South Sumatera, Yogyakarta, East Java, West
and East Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi.
For Gorontalo, North Sulawesi and Maluku, the high risk level was also found during March April that is anoma-
lous since other provinces are normally only at low risk level in these months. The distinctive rainfall pattern occurs
in this regions could be a possible cause for this different response. It was documented that in this area, the highest
monthly rainfall occurs in June-July and the lowest occurs in the February and November [5]. In term of duration,
we observed that some provinces are at high risk level of El-Nino impact for more than three months that potentially
leads severe drought. Those provinces are South Sumatera, Bangka-Belitung, Lampung, Central Kalimantan, South
Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, West Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, Gorontalo, Maluku and Papua.

CONCLUSION
We have analysed the frequency of El-Nino impact to quantify drought risk over Indonesia related to the event. El-
Nino event is reported to give the impact if rainfall decreases up to below normal condition. Two package of monthly

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 FIGURE 3. Monthly drought risk map related to El-Nino hazard based on GPCP data (1950 2010).

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 FIGURE 4. Table 1. Monthly probability of El-Nino impact at province level (in %) based on GPCP data (1950 2010). Bold
means high or very high risk level

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 rainfall data i.e. GPCC and CRU data were employed to conduct frequency analysis. Overall, the results indicate
the strong spatial and temporal dependencies of El-Nino impact. During April-May, generally known as transitional
season (inter-monsoon), the probability to be affected by El-Nino is low, mostly less than 20%. In contrast, July-
October are months where areas with high and very high risk were observed over many regions such as Southern
part of Sumatera, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua. In November, the probability is still high but only
for provinces located in the southern part of the country. Our findings complement and update previous works [6,
11] by analysing the frequency of El-Nino impact. This enables us to provide more directly relevant information for
risk assessment and management. In the context of risk management related to weather-climate hazards, the findings
will contribute to improve national capacity. However, the probability of El-Nino impact should not beregarded as a
prediction of the current event impact since each event is actually unique. Other climatic events that occur alongside
the El-Nino event should be considered when assessing the impact of a particular current event.

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