Citation: Coscarelli, R.; Caloiero, T.; Filice, E.; Marsico, L.; Rotundo, R. Meteorological Drought Characterization in the Calabria Region (Southern Italy). Climate 2023, 11, 160. https://doi.org/10.3390/ cli11080160 Academic Editor: Junqiang Yao Received: 1 June 2023 Revised: 13 July 2023 Accepted: 21 July 2023 Published: 26 July 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). climate Article Meteorological Drought Characterization in the Calabria Region (Southern Italy) Roberto Coscarelli 1 , Tommaso Caloiero 2, * , Eugenio Filice 3 , Loredana Marsico 3 and Roberta Rotundo 3 1 National Research Council-Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (CNR-IRPI), 87036 Rende, Italy; roberto.coscarelli@irpi.cnr.it 2 National Research Council-Institute for Agricultural and Forest Systems in Mediterranean (CNR-ISAFOM), 87036 Rende, Italy 3 Multi-Risk Functional Center, Regional Agency for Environmental Protection of Calabria, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy; e.filice@arpacal.it (E.F.); l.marsico@arpacal.it (L.M.); r.rotundo@arpacal.it (R.R.) * Correspondence: tommaso.caloiero@isafom.cnr.it or tommaso.caloiero@cnr.it; Tel.: +39-0984-841-464 Abstract: Due to the important role of water resources in the growth of the world’s economy, drought causes global concern for its severe worldwide implications on different sectors, such as biodiversity, farming, public water supply, energy, tourism, human health, and ecosystem services. In particular, drought events can have strong environmental and socioeconomic impacts in countries depending on rain-fed agriculture such as the ones in the Mediterranean region, which, due to a detected increase in warming and precipitation decrease, is considered a climate change hotspot. In this context, in this paper, meteorological drought in the Calabria region (southern Italy) has been characterized considering the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) evaluated at different timescales. First, the temporal distribution of the most severe dry episodes has been evaluated. Then, a trend analysis has been conducted considering the different seasons, the wet (autumn and winter) and dry (spring and summer) periods, and the annual scale. Finally, the relationship between drought and some teleconnection patterns (the North Atlantic Oscillation—NAO, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation— ENSO, and the Mediterranean Oscillation—MO) has been investigated. Results show that the majority of the severe/extreme drought events have been observed between 1985 and 2008. Moreover, a decrease in SPI values has been observed in winter and spring, in both the wet and dry periods, and upon the annual scale considering the 12-month SPI and the 24-month SPI. Finally, a link between the drought episodes in the Calabria region and the NAO phases and the MO has been identified. Since drought episodes can severely impact water resources and their uses, the findings presented in this work can be useful to plan and manage the water supply for household, farming, and industrial uses. Keywords: drought; SPI; trend; teleconnection patterns; Calabria 1. Introduction Drought can be considered one of the major environmental disasters that can have a considerable impact on humanity. In fact, this phenomenon can lead to a deficiency in drinking water for both humans and livestock with a consequent reduction in agricul- tural production and an increase in economic costs [1,2]. Usually, four different types of droughts can be detected: meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, and socioeconomic drought [3,4]. The first three types of droughts are strictly related to a deficit in precipitation, soil moisture, and surface or groundwater, respectively [5,6]. Socioeconomic drought, on the other hand, characterizes the adverse conditions in a society, economy, and environment resulting from a reduced water supply [7,8]. Usually, drought monitoring depends on the analysis of a set of indicators representa- tive of the different components of the hydrological cycle (e.g., precipitation, soil moisture, reservoir levels, river flow, groundwater levels) or specific impacts (vegetation stress), and starting from these indicators, many different indices have been developed over the Climate 2023, 11, 160. https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11080160 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/climate