Despite the diverse atmos­pher­ic cir­cu­la­tions affect­ing the Indone­sian Mar­itime Con­ti­nent (IMC), i.e., El Nino South­ern Oscil­la­tion-ENSO, Indi­an Ocean Dipole-IOD, Mad­den Julian Oscil­la­tion-MJO, Mon­soon, there is a lack of research on their inter­ac­tion with hydro­log­i­cal events in water­sheds. This study fills this gap by pro­vid­ing insights into the dom­i­nant atmos­pher­ic events and their cor­re­la­tion with the water sup­ply in three char­ac­ter­is­tic water­sheds, i.e., Ton­dano (north/Pacific Ocean), Jang­ka (south/Indian Ocean), and Kapuas (equatorial/interior) in IMC.

The research used the stan­dard­ized pre­cip­i­ta­tion index for the 1‑monthly (SPI1), 3‑monthly (SPI3), and 6‑monthly (SPI3) scale gen­er­at­ed from 23 years (2000–2022) of month­ly his­tor­i­cal satel­lite rain­fall data. The analy­sis com­pared each loca­tion’s SPI indices with the month­ly Nino 3.4, Dipole Mode Index (DMI), MJO (100E and 120E), Mon­soon index, and stream­flow data.

The result shows that the dom­i­nant atmos­pher­ic events for the Ton­dano water­shed were ENSO, IOD, and MJO, with cor­re­la­tion val­ues of ‑0.62, ‑0.26, and ‑0.35, respec­tive­ly. The MJO event was dom­i­nant for the Kapuas water­shed, with a cor­re­la­tion val­ue of ‑0.28. ENSO and IOD were dom­i­nant for the Jang­ka water­shed, with cor­re­la­tion val­ues of ‑0.27 and ‑0.28, respec­tive­ly. The mon­soon cor­re­lat­ed less with the SPI3 in all loca­tions, while it mod­u­lates the wet and dry peri­od pat­tern annu­al­ly.

Most intense dry peri­ods in Ton­dano occur with the acti­va­tion of El Nino, while the intense wet peri­od occurs even in nor­mal atmos­pher­ic con­di­tions. Most intense wet peri­ods in Jang­ka occur with the acti­va­tion of La Nina, while the intense dry peri­od occurs even in nor­mal atmos­pher­ic con­di­tions. The occur­rence of MJO com­pen­sates for the intense wet and dry peri­ods in Kapuas.

The cor­re­la­tion among SPI3, atmos­pher­ic cir­cu­la­tion, and stream­flow in the diverse water­shed char­ac­ter­is­tics in the IMC water­sheds could give strate­gic infor­ma­tion for water­shed man­age­ment and applies to oth­er water­sheds with sim­i­lar atmos­pher­ic cir­cu­la­tion char­ac­ter­is­tics.