Drought monitoring in the Seybouse basin (Algeria) over the last decades

Abstract

Algeria is amongst the African countries most affected by climate change impacts especially by drought which caused considerable economic losses in the past decades. In this paper, drought monitoring for the period between 1970 and 2011 was conducted in the Seybouse watershed by analysing annual rainfall data in terms of variability and trends along with the calculation of the standardized precipitation index (SPI). The results indicated important inter-annual rainfall fluctuation and a significant increasing trend. The estimated drought indices indicated that the Seybouse watershed experienced in the past a long dry period with a moderate severity followed by a long wet period at the majority of the study area. Moreover, the interpolation of the standardized precipitation indices (SPI) on the entire Seybouse basin in GIS allowed visualizing and evaluating the spatial-temporal evolution of drought in the region which should help the decision-makers in the management of water resources, agriculture and other activities that may be affected by drought.

Keywords

• climate change
• drought
• GIS
• Seybouse watershed
• standardized precipitation index (SPI)