AGRICULTURAL DROUGHT ANALYSIS BASED ON REMOTE SENSING: THE CASE OF AYDIN, TURKIYE

Agricultural drought is a phenomenon that arises when there is a deficiency of moisture in the soil, which has a detrimental impact on the productivity of agricultural crops. In Aydın, Turkey, particularly in the fertile Söke Plain region, agricultural drought is a major problem for farmers. The use of satellite data based on remote sensing and the indices derived from them allows for the timely and spatially detailed monitoring of vegetation health and moisture conditions over large areas. This enables the early detection and monitoring of agricultural drought. The present study evaluates the occurrence of agricultural drought in Aydın province between 1995 and 2020. For this purpose, satellite images captured by the Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) in August 1995 and 2020 and land cover maps produced by the European Space Agency (ESA) at the same dates were utilized. The Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) indices were produced using Landsat satellite images. Then, the Vegetation Temperature Condition Index (VTCI) was obtained to detect agricultural drought. Finally, the relationship between the VTCI and land cover (LC) was evaluated, as well as the changes in the VTCI index between 1995 and 2020. The study found that agricultural drought increased with rising land surface temperature and declining NDVI values in Aydın province between 1995 and 2020.