Drought Vulnerability and Mitigation Measures in Jordan based on Spatio-temporal Assessment of Single and Composite Meteorological Drought Indices

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Drought Vulnerability and Mitigation Measures in Jordan based on Spatio-temporal Assessment of Single and Composite Meteorological Drought Indices. Ph.D. Dissertation by; Haitham AlAdaileh Supervisor; Dr. Barta Károly, PhD and Prof. Dr. Rakonczai János Abstract Long monthly data (1980-2017) of rainfall, air temperature, vegetation index, and barely production data were collected and implemented to investigate drought in Jordan. Twenty-nine weather stations across the country were used as a reference for generating interpolation maps. The drought was assessed using various drought indicators; SPI, PDI, TDI, VDI, and CDI at various timescales of 12, 6, 3, and 2 months. The CDI was further used to correlate with barely production to assess the applicability for crop monitoring. Also, the CDI was implemented in groundwater vulnerability assessment in Jordan. Jordan experienced significant annual rainfall reduction trends ranging from 0.01 to 5.2 mm/year. The trend's significance and reduction rates were related to both the geographic locations and stational altitudes. Jordan highlands seem to be most affected by the reduction followed by Jordan Rift Valley and the desert region. The rainfall reduction was highly obvious at both March and November with distinct rainfall shifts at both sides of the wet season (i.e. September and May). Drought spatial and temporal assessments using 29 weather stations from 1980 till 2017 indicted that Jordan experienced periodic cycles of drought with various severity and frequency. The use of drought indicators enabled the investigation for the drought event’s characteristics. The standardized precipitation index provided a clear tool to indicate drought frequency and magnitude trends that appeared to be once every two to three years with a significant increase rate of occurrence. Although SPI12 is less effective in providing a clear understanding of the rainfall shifts and monthly reduction as compared to SPI3, however, it provides a general indication of the droughts, especially if was coupled with the Krig interpolation technique. The generated drought krig maps revealed the presence of two drought trends; local and national. With the implicitly of statistical tools as cluster analyses, three main regions of droughts were grouped in terms of severity holding similar micro-climatological conditions; northern, eastern, and southern.

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