Climate Change Repercussions on Meteorological Drought Frequency and Intensity in South Wollo, Ethiopia

Climate change and drought are the major challenges imposing irreversible damages on humans’ livelihoods in the twenty-first century. Drought is one of the highest natural disasters in Ethiopia having major impacts on the environment, economic, and social capital. This study aimed to assess the frequency and intensity of meteorological drought occurrences under the current climate change in North-Eastern Ethiopia. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is used to compute the frequency and intensity of drought at 3- and 12-month scales based on 39 years (1982–2020) rainfall data. Mann–Kendall test has been used to analyse the trends of meteorological drought events to determine the magnitude of changes. The results of the study revealed that the highest frequencies of extreme meteorological droughts were recorded in between 2003 and 2012 with SPI values from − 3.0 to − 2.1. On the other hand, severe meteorological drought incidences were recorded from 1982 to 2012 with annual SPI values of − 1.97 to − 1.53 and moderate drought were noted in between 2000 and 2012 with SPI values ranging from − 1.62 to − 0.99 in all-timescales. The results indicated that drought events were more severe in the summer season than in the spring season. The study concluded that the years 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010, and 2012 were the most drastic and distinct-wide drought episode that experienced extreme magnitude drought at all-timescales and the rural livelihoods were affected. Applying climate change adaptation strategies to cope with drought, improving resilience to recover from drought and developing resilient ecosystems are recommended actions.