Drought trends projection under future climate change scenarios for Iran region

scenario will struggle with water shortage and dry periods, which is more than other scenarios and the base time scale. The study highlights these findings: the number of dry periods in cold and cool terrains would be more than hot climates, whereas their intensity would be less than hot and warm climates. Furthermore, the temporal distribution of PET and precipitation revealed that for most of the stations, the precipitation was considerably less than the PET, especially in the middle months of the year. This situation in the southern regions is likely to be more significant. As a consequence, the severity and number of future droughts are expected to deteriorate particularly in warmer climates in terms of both meteorological and hydrological aspects, which highlights the importance of current water resources management for transmitting these natural resources to the next generations. According to the findings, this study broadens the knowledge on the future drought condition over Iran with acute water shortage crisis. Based on the observation, different regions will encounter distinct drought Fig 5. The temporal distribution of PET and precipitation for the next 102 years. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290698.g005 PLOS ONE Drought trends projection under future climate change scenarios for Iran region PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290698 November 9, 2023 21 / 24