Monitoring Drought with Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSI) in Data-Scarce Çarşamba Basin

Abstract

With the increase in global warming, significant changes have occurred in the climate throughout the world. Extreme changes in the climates how the effect of decreasing water resources and increasing drought, heat waves and floods. The drought is indicated as hydrological, agricultural and socio-economic drought, primarily meteorological drought. Agricultural drought leads to a decrease in productivity in agriculture. Drought is one of the most important impact parameters in the planning of agricultural strategies. Agricultural drought brings along food shortages and socio-economic problems. For these reasons, it is necessary to estimate and monitor agricultural drought. The study was carried out in the headwater of Çarşamba River located in Konya Closed Basin where agricultural activities were effective. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to obtain daily soil moisture data for the period of 2006-2015. SWAT-CUP was used to determine the optimum parameters of the SWAT model. Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSI) was calculated by using soil moisture values obtained by using hydrological model developed by using SWAT model. SSI is frequently used because it can be easily interpreted to evaluate the effects of agricultural drought. Within the scope of the study, it was aimed to perform agricultural drought analysis for the period of 2006-2015 in the headwater of Çarşamba River by SWAT-SSI assessment. As a result of the study, the years 2006-2007-2012 were determined as dry years, and the years 2008-2011- 2015 were determined as non-dry years in terms of soil moisture. It was determined that there was no extreme event for other years.