Drought analysis: A case study of Eastern Burundi

This study aims to identify and characterize meteorological and agricultural droughts occurred in Eastern Burundi during the last 30years. Daily and monthly rainfall and temperature data of 11 meteorological stations provided by IGEBU are used. The percentage of normal precipitation index and the water requirement satisfaction index have been applied in the identification and analysis of the respectively meteorological and agricultural droughts. The potential evapotranspiration equivalent to the crop water requirement was estimated using the blaney-Criddle formula and applied to maize crop farming in the context of rain fed agriculture. On the characterization matter, main drought characteristics that are duration, drought volume, intensity severity, frequency and physical coverage were determined. From the results of the analysis it was observed that both meteorological and agricultural droughts occurred in the eastern Burundi. It was found that droughts have increased in frequency, duration, severity and intensity during the last 15 years. Meteorological droughts are observed more at natural region level. Most of them were moderate for the most of time. The interpolation for the whole area showed one meteorological drought year that is 2005. For agricultural drought, crop performance was found to be good to very good for only 50% of the time. Results showed also that crop growing during season A(October-January) was more threatened by drought occurrence than during season B(February-May). From the spatial analysis, 50% of the study the area was found pronea area. This includes the northern (the whole Bugesera and a part of Bweru) and the southern part constituted essentially by Moso