Probabilistic Studies of Hydrologic Drought Events in Juba River in Somalia

Juba River runs from its headwaters in Ethiopia through Somalia and discharges into the Indian Ocean near Kismayo. Severe droughts recur in Juba River Catchment. This chapter examines the time series of hydrologic droughts and the factors influencing their occurrence in the catchment. The Author further demonstrates the application of probability distributions to compute the exceedance probabilities of the hydrologic drought experienced in the catchment in the past, from 2001 to 2014. The fit of the probability distributions are compared to show the best fitting of all distributions. The probability distribution that will reasonably fit well to the data set is adapted to generate graphical plots for forecasting the return periods of drought events in the Catchment. Reconstructing past drought episodes and future drought predictions is useful in drought risk management in Baardheere region of Somalia.