Drought Assessment in Nestos River Basin (N. Greece) for the Period 1955-2018

Abstract

Drought is a significant meteorological phenomenon that can seriously impact natural ecosystems. Drought assessment and monitoring should be continuous in regions of high ecological importance, for the conservation of natural vegetation distribution and dynamics. In this study, we analyzed monthly precipitation data obtained from five meteorological stations in the Nestos' river sub-basin in Greece in order to detect drought episodes during the period 1955-2018 by employing the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). The results indicate that the coastal and altitudinal lower areas of the region faced more frequent and more severe drought events during the recent years compared to the past, whereas the climatic conditions in the mountainous areas are more favorable. The hydrological years 1977-1978, 1984-1985, 1988-1989, 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 were the years of the most severe droughts in the basin. From the trend analysis of the SPI it appears that the lower part of the sub-basin is anticipated to face even more droughts in the future. These patterns may have significant impacts on the natural rainfed vegetation, especially at the river's Delta where habitat types of high priority are located. Thus, the need to adopt measures for the conservation of the local ecosystem is critical, considering also that the local habitat types are characterized by high demands for water availability. © 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0