Analysis of climatological time series of Southeast Anatolian Region and determination of desertification prone areas

The Mediterranean Basin, including Turkey, is more affected than many other regions due to the processes of land degradation and desertification. Especially in our country, the Southeastern Anatolia Region is prone to drought events as it is one of the most vulnerable places in this respect. Unfortunately, it is important to accept that desertification, which is exacerbated by climate change/variability and drought, is an anthropogenic phenomenon. Desertification, together with biophysical, economic, political, and social systems specific to any location, results from environment-human interactions due to its complex and versatile nature. Global warming and wide fluctuations in the climate cause changes in the seasonal distribution and intensity of precipitation as they also affect precipitation patterns. Precipitation, which varies significantly throughout the year or seasonally, creates a positive feedback in terms of drought and thus desertification. This study tried to explain the causes and consequences of desertification and concepts such as drought and aridity by scanning the extensive literature. The main purpose of the study is to determine the extent of desertification processes in the Southeastern Anatolia Region, which is the study area. For this reason, long-term precipitation and temperature data of the General Directorate of Meteorology belonging to 19 stations representing the region were used. The Aridity index (AI) was used to reveal the quantity and spatial distribution of desertification. Long-term precipitation and fluctuations in drought were investigated using annual aridity index and normalized precipitation anomaly index (NPAI) time series