Long-Term Meteorological Drought Analysis of Bursa Province

Drought disaster is at the center of fundamental problems of civilizations. Meteorological drought is observed primarily due to lack of precipitation, high temperatures, and increased evaporation. Meteorological drought is followed by agricultural and hydrological drought. Hydrometeorological time series include trends particularly over the last 30 years as a result of the impact of climate change according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In this study, drought analyses were conducted for Bursa province, which intersects with the Nilüfer sub-basin, which is in the Susurluk Basin, one of the 25 river basins of Turkey. In the analysis, precipitation data of 17116-Bursa and 17676-Uludağ stations between 1967-2022 were used. Drought analyzes were made using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Percent of Normal Index (PNI) methods. With the drought analyses, drought phases were found by calculating the amount of drought recurrence, drought duration, drought severity, and drought amplitude values. The seasons with the most drought were determined. As a result of the drought analyses, it was observed that the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Percent of Normal Index (PNI) methods gave compatible results with each other.