摘要
Parameters of 450 strongest “agricultural-droughts in the world from 1980 to 2008, as well as time variations of those parameters, are considered (based on data from a droughts archive of the University of Louvain, Belgium). To study the meteorological aspects of droughts, variations of Palmer drought index, evaluated based on meteorological data for the entire land territory over period from 1901 to 2000, were also analyzed. Those values, averaged over largest and typical river basins of the world, are compared with data on river runoff variations from the author’s database and analyzed with the use of methods proposed by the author. The hydrological aspects of droughts and low-water periods were analyzed based on the author’s archive on minimal river runoff, including about 2000 many-year series.