Meteorological Drought Analysis of Upper Gediz Basin Precipitations

In terms of sustainable management of water resources, the quantification of the severity and duration of drought in river basins is of great importance. For this purpose, many different index methods have been developed in the literature, but the standardized precipitation index (SPI) among them has been the most preferred method in practice. In this study, meteorological droughts occurring in the Upper Gediz Basin in the Aegean Region of the country were investigated by using the SPI method. The intensity and duration of the drought in the monthly, seasonal and annual periods of the region were determined by using the monthly total precipitation values measured between the years 1960-2017 at the Demirci, ？cikler, Kula, Selendi, Gediz and U？ak stations in the basin. As a result, it has been pointed out that there is an increase in the duration and the intensities of the winter droughts and winter droughts are dominant in the annual drought period