Drought monitoring in Ceyhan Basin, Turkey
Mehmet İshak Yüce, Musa Eşit
Abstract
Various drought indices are utilized to monitor and detect drought and its probable effects. Hydro-climate parameters, including rainfall, temperature and soil moisture, are important in identifying drought phenomena. In this study, 10 notable indices (SPI, SPEI, scPDSI, CZI, MCZI, RAI, RDI, DI, PNI and ZI) have been employed to monitor drought events in the Ceyhan Basin, Turkey. The applicability of these indices and their performances corresponding to historical droughts were examined by employing eight meteorological stations. Apart from the scPDSI, other indices have shown a strong correlation for 1-month time scale, and at different time scales of 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, only the correlation between the SPI, SPEI and RDI was observed to be high. While the SPI, SPEI and RDI have demonstrated a strong correlation in perceiving drought severity categories for 1-month time scale, for longer time scales the correlation of the SPEI with the other two indices was low.