Assessment of Drought Evolution Characteristics and Drought Coping Ability of Water Conservancy Projects in Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin, China

Based on the national precipitation dataset in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin of China for the 1961–2011 period, the China-Z growing season index was calculated to analyze the characteristics of the evolution of meteorological droughts. Data from statistical droughts (the droughts which are defined and classified by the actual statistic data) were compared with those of meteorological droughts during the 2000–2011 period. Nine indexes were selected to evaluate the drought coping ability of water conservancy projects based on the fuzzy comprehensive assessment model. The results showed that the China-Z growing season index was a downward trend with a rate of −0.063 per decade from 1961 to 2011, which indicates an increasing trend in drought intensity. Droughts were more frequent than average during the 1961–1979 period and returned to normal frequency during the 1980–2011 period. Both the ratio of drought affected area (RDAA) and the ratio of drought suffering area (RDSA) of statistical droughts decreased more quickly than those of meteorological droughts (2000–2011). The indexes of water conservancy projects were lower than the average all-China indexes. Half of the 59 three-level water resources districts exhibited a relatively poor drought coping ability, which means that enhancing the drought coping ability of the water conservancy project was quite important.