Drought Assessment in the Aegean Region of Turkey

Drought indices are commonly used to monitor the duration and severity of droughts. In this regard, the continuously changing climate regardless of its cause or effect pushes the limit of the water deficit through time and space. Izmir is a raising city in Turkey, which owns various water resources including but not limited to seashores, lakes, river streams, and groundwater aquifers. In this study, the long-term precipitation and temperature records from 14 meteorological stations between 1973 and 2020 (for 47 years) are used to investigate the drought characteristics in Buyuk Menderes, Kucuk Menderes, and Gediz basins located in the Aegean region of Turkey. For this, the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), Percent of Normal (PNI), and the so-called Discrepancy Precipitation Index (DPI) are used with consideration to 1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-month moving averages to investigate the drought patterns. Results showed that the monthly indices depict very similar results for the entire region. However, in the 1980s and 2010s droughts were more severe than the rest of the historical records. When the moving average operator is implemented in the analysis (3-, 6- and 12-month periods), neither SPI nor the SPEI showed the same results at any stations. It is illustrated that the periods of severe and normal drought have occurred in the past, yet the indices that are obtained using average values are generally within the normal limits, but extreme values (extremely arid or extremely wet) occurred occasionally. It is also concluded that although there is a similarity between the implemented indices, the DPI and PNI depict the highest resemblance.