172 - A Comprehensive Study of Multi-Year Hydrological Droughts in the Great Salt Lake Basin

Hydrological drought is a complex phenomenon that can cause significant economic challenges to agriculture, water utilities, and power generation, particularly in the western and central regions of the United States. There is a lack of detailed information on the historical multi-year hydrological drought characteristics (e.g., severity and frequency) and their changing patterns, a core need of water resources managers to prepare for future droughts in the Great Salt Lake Basin, one of the regions with severe drought challenges in the western part of the United States. We used the mean daily streamflow values of the USGS streamflow gauges and an open-source tool for drought analysis (PyDat) to characterize the relationship between severity and frequency of hydrological drought. We investigated spatiotemporal shifts of drought and classified regions with similar changing patterns using K-means clustering. The results from this study would help policymakers and researchers identify potential changes in multi-year hydrologic drought and regions with high drought problems, which could help them in future drought mitigation planning and research.