DROUGHT MONITORING IN SOUTHEASTERN ROMANIA BASED ON THE COMPARISON AND CORRELATION OF SPEI AND SPI INDICES

The main aim was to assess the drought phenomena by comparing two relevant indicators i.e., the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the standardized precipitation evaporation index (SPEI) using long time series of precipitation and temperature starting from 1961 up to 2020 gauged and validated in the land monitoring system of the Ialomita district located in the southeast of Romania at Grivita station. The obtained results suggested that SPEI can provide better insights regarding the drought phenomena concerning the occurrence of drought events and trend estimation. In the next years, drought events are expected to rise in frequency, duration, and intensity. In our opinion, it would be necessary to exceed the prevailing use of the SPI to assess the drought phenomena and improve the environmental monitoring systems to have robust data both of rainfall and temperature in a high number of gauging stations that could be utilized also for a spatially distributed evaluation of SPEI index.