Assessment of Meteorological and Agricultural Drought Analysis in Kırklareli province

The Global warming in the world cause to the climate change in this century. Agriculture is one of the sectors that can be most affected by climate change. Agricultural production is affected by precipitation and temperature variables. Due to the changes in these two parameters, the increase in the temperatures and the changes in the amount of precipitation in parallel with this disrupt the ecological balance and bring along the problems of desertification and drought. Agricultural production is highly dependent on meteorological factors in Thrace region. For this reason, it is expected that changes in climatic factors will affect the agriculture of the region positively or negatively. The aim of this study is to determine the frequency and severity of meteorological and agricultural drought with two indexes between 1963-2019 years in Kırklareli province. Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) was used to determine monthly, seasonal, six monthly and annual agricultural drought. According to annual agricultural drought results, it was calculated ten years mild arid (1969, 1985, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2011, 2016, and 2019), five years moderate arid (1983, 1989, 1996, 2008, and 2015), one year severe arid (1994), and two years extreme arid (2000 and 2001). Another drought index which is Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to determine meteorological drought. According to annual meteorological drought results, Eight years mild arid (1964, 1969, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1990, 1991, and 2011), seven years moderate arid (1983, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 2008), and two years extreme arid (2000, 2001) was figured out. According to linear correlation analysis, a good correlation was obtained for SPI and SPEI values, between annual, six monthly (Spring-Summer), and three monthly only winter and spring periods (R2=0.871, R2=0.901, R2=0.974, and R2=0.919), respectively. In the 57-year observation period; 18 years were determined as the arid year with SPEI index and 67% of these total arid years (12 arid years) occurred and 17 years were determined as the arid year with SPI index and 76% of these total arid years (13 arid years) occurred, between 1982 and 2002 years. The SPEI drought index which use precipitation, temperature and evapotranspiration data could give much good results to policy makers in drought mitigation policies in terms of giving results that are more accurate in agricultural production and drought assessments.