Defining Homogeneous Drought Zones Based on Soil Moisture across Japan and Teleconnections with Large-Scale Climate Signals

Abstract

Droughts are widespread disasters worldwide and are concurrently influenced by multiple large-scale climate signals. This is particularly true over Japan, where drought has strong heterogeneity due to multiple factors such as monsoon, topography, and ocean circulations. Regional heterogeneity poses challenges for drought prediction and management. To overcome this difficulty, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of teleconnection between climate signals and homogeneous drought zones over Japan. First, droughts are characterized by simulated soil moisture from a land surface model during 1958–2012. The Mclust toolkit, distinct empirical orthogonal function, and wavelet coherence analysis are used, respectively, to investigate the homogeneous drought zone, principal component of each homogeneous zone, and teleconnection between climate signals and drought. Results indicate that nine homogeneous drought zones with different characteristics are defined and quantified. Among these nine zones, zone 1 is dominated by extreme drought events. Zones 2 and 6 are typical representatives of spring droughts, whereas zone 7 is wet for most of the period. The Hokkaido region is divided into wetter zone 4 and drier zone 9. Zones 3, 5, and 8 are distinguished by the topography. The analyses also reveal almost all nine zones have a high level of homogeneity, with more than 60% explained variance. Also, these nine zones are dominated by different large-scale climate signals: the Arctic Oscillation has the strongest impact on zones 1, 7, and 8; the influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation on zones 3, 4, and 6 is significant; zones 2 and 9 are both dominated by the Pacific decadal oscillation; and El Niño–Southern Oscillation dominates zone 5. The results will be valuable for drought management and drought prevention.