DROUGHT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF STANDARDISED PRECIPITATION INDEX (SPI)ON THE ALBANIAN TERRITORY

Drought is a period of inadequate or no rainfall over extended time creation soil moisture deficit and hydrological imbalances. It is an event with adverse impact on the environment, economy, agriculture, energy, social life etc. The evaluation of drought frequency and its severity is carried out using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). It has become one of most frequently used tools for drought monitoring throughout the world. SPI is based on statistical techniques, which can quantify the degree of wetness by comparing usually 1, 3, 6, 9, 12 or even (sometimes) 24-monthly rainfall totals with the historical rainfall period over the history. The period 1951-2000 is used to evaluate the value of SPI for 1, 3, 6 months. Regarding to the SPI 3 (for three months period) the cases of moderate, severe and extremely dry for every 10 years shows an increasing trend over the period into consideration. These SPI values point out, that period 1981-1990 has the maximum cases with drought (more than 20 cases per decade). During the decade 1961-1970 and 1971-1980 number of cases with moderate, severe and extremely drought is around 10 cases per decade. The year 2003 is one of most distinguished regarding the drought. The values of SPI6 vary from -1.5 in southeast to -4.2 in north of Albania (severe to extremely dry).