Date

2016-8

Author

Çakal, Selen

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As one of the most important results of climate change; drought has become to be the most pervasive problem that causes water scarcity and shortage in North Cyprus. The rainfall is the only source of the natural water resources in this country which has semiarid climate with dry and hot summer and moderate winter seasons. Owing to the reduction in precipitation and increase in evaporation, the level of water in aquifers, reservoirs, and streams of North Cyprus has dropped considerably and it is certain that the water scarcity will be more difficult problem to overcome in the future. Accordingly, it is needed to study the level of the drought in this region. In this study, the main target is to identify the major drought events and their duration and severity by using Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for 33 stations in North Cyprus between 1978 and 2015. In order to find PDSI values of each station, in addition to monthly precipitation and temperature, soil available water capacity (AWC) is also required. AWC values were calculated based on soil characteristics of each station. After evaluating monthly PDSI values, the historical drought events are identified and the Mann Kendall Trend test is applied. As a result, it has been found that there are mainly 6 dry periods occurred from the September 1978 to August 2015. The drought occurred between 2004 and 2005 was remarkable severe. Generally, North Cyprus is 28% near normal, 45% drought and 27% wet. However, statistically significant downward trend is evident in almost all stations

Subject Keywords

Drought, PDSI, Mann Kendall Trend Test, North Cyprus

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/69717

Collections

Northern Cyprus Campus, Thesis