Drought is a recurrent phenomenon and a normal feature of climate. It is one of the major natural hazards that frequently hits Syria, causing significant damages to ecosystems and social–economic environment, especially agricultural areas.
The purpo
se of current study is to estimate the degree of severity and the frequency of drought at seasonal and annual timescales in the southern region of Syria by applying the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) on the rainfall data recorded over (1958-2006) in four climatic stations: Damscus, Khrabo, Dara and El-Sweda.
The results showed that there were no significant changes or trends in annual winter and spring rainfall at southern region scale. They also showed its frequent exposure to drought. At annual timescale, Damscus and Khrabo stations were distinguished from the others by extreme drought, and Khrabo by severe drought. The season mostly exposed to drought events was spring, followed by winter and autumn seasons. The absence of the evere drought of Dara winter, and the extreme drought of Damscus and Khrabo autumn were also observed.
Due to the importance of climate changes and their strong and increasing influences
on different human and ecological systems, It is necessary to study and understand these
changes. This research aims to determine the direction and magnitude of the
change in
temperatures and rainfall trend during 1978-2011 in Latakia, Kasaab and Slenfeh. The
study has been done through the analysis of annual, seasonal, and monthly rainfall amount
and temperature average, which showed a significant increasing in the average annual
temperature in the three regions and significant seasonally increasing except for Winter in
Latakia and Slenfeh, Autumn in Latakia. But the annual rainfall changes were nonsignificant,
while seasonally rainfall increased significantly in Slenfeh Winter and
decreased in Kasaab Winter. After dividing the entire study duration into two equal periods
1978-1995, 1995-2011 and comparing the second period with the first one, we found a
significant increasing in the average annual temperature in the three regions,
non- significant in the annual and seasonal rainfall changes. The highest significant in
seasonal temperature in Latakia, Kasaab and Slenfeh reached +1.5, +2.9, +1.8 during
September, August، and May respectively. While the annual drought showed increased
trend in Latakia and kasaab and decreased one in Slenfeh.
