Palmer Kuraklık İndisi’ne Göre İç Anadolu Bölgesi’nin Konya Bölümü’ndeki Kurak Dönemler ve Kuraklık Şiddeti

Abstract

The study aims to determine major drought periods, their starting and ending times and severity at Konya, Karaman, Aksaray and Karapınar stations over the Konya sub-region of the Central Anatolia Region, using the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). The PDSI is based on precipitation, evapotranspiration and available water capacity of the soil (field capacity). Amount of the evapotranspiration was computed by the Thornthwaite’s method making use of monthly mean temperature and precipitation totals. In this frame, first, monthly PDSI values were calculated by using monthly precipitation and calculated evapotranspiration totals and available water capacity of the soil for the period from beginning of the station records to 2006. Major results reached by examining monthly PDSI and Moisture Anomaly Index time-series are as follows: (i) Decreases in the precipitation amounts in the common periods determined for four stations vary between 30% and 80%. Decreases of the precipitation during these periods are more evident particularly in winter and autumn seasons. (ii) According to the analysis of the Mann-Kendall rank correlation coefficient performed for both usable water amount (P-PE) and the PDSI time-series, although there is no any statistically significant trend in these series, a general decreasing trend (i.e. a run towards the drier conditions) is evident. (iii) The drought events of 1972-1974 and 1999-2001 were considerable severe

Keywords

• drought
• palmer drought severity index
• mann-kendall test
• konya sub-region