Abstract
Drought monitoring is of crucial importance for freshwater planning and management as well as for prediction of the onset and severity of droughts. In this study, temporal pattern of droughts was analyzed in the Shalimar area of Srinagar district of Jammu & Kashmir using SPI approach. Monthly precipitation data from 1985 to 2015 were used to compute Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) values. The computation of SPI series was done for short as well as intermediate time scales. Analysis of SPI values were done to study the temporal patterns of drought occurrence. The drought severity and duration were also estimated. From the analysis, it was observed that in the years 1989, 1998, 2003 and 2008 moderate droughts occurred where as in the years 2000 and 2001 severe droughts occurred in the Shalimar area. Extreme drought occurred in the year 1999 when the SPI value was -2.243. Also, SPI in the severe and extreme drought years indicate only moderate dryness instead of extreme dryness.