Present research is focused on assessing spatiotemporal variability of meteorological drought based on Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), non-parametric trend tests and identifying drought hazardous pockets in semi-arid central Gujarat region, India. The SPI method at 6 monthly time step indicating seasonal drought have been utilized to characterize peak drought events, duration, occurrence probability and major drought years. The SPI-6 time series has been further analyzed with Mann-Kendall (MK) and Sen’s slope (SEN) tests to understand significance and magnitude of trends. The monthly rainfall data were obtained from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) gridded data archive having 0.25° resolution for the time period of 1951-2020. The study revealed major droughts occurred in 1951, 1968, 1972, 1974, 1987, 1991, 2002 and 2015 years. The IDW interpolation method in GIS-Environment was adopted for spatial distribution of major drought years, near to extreme drought categories as well as trend analysis outcomes. Based on the average SPI-6 values, 1985-1987, 1991-1993 and 1999-2002 durations were observed to be crucial drought scenarios in which the year 1987 was most extreme with drought intensity up to -2.86 in the north-west pockets. The Reclassify and Weighted Sum operations were employed on the raster maps of drought occurrence probability (%) and trend magnitude (SEN) of drought series to prepare drought hazard map (DHI). The central Gujarat region observed 30.45 and 10.48 % area under Severe and Extreme hazard. The outcomes from current research will prove helpful in evaluating regional drought policies for sustainable management of water resources under changing climate.
