A STUDY ON NORTH IRAQ REGION’S METEOROLOGICAL DROUGHT SULAYMANIYAH EXAMPLE

Drought is one of the phenomena of climate and is one of the catastrophic events that causes many damage each time. One of the ways of drought adjustment, evaluation and drought monitoring is based on indicators that can be used to determine the extent and continuity of it in a region. In this study, the drought analysis (intensity, duration, and severity of drought) of Sulaymaniyah province in North Iraq Region has been studied by using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) for time scales of 1,3, 6, 9 and 12 months. In order to observe the dry and wet periods and severity of drought and length of drought, the monthly rainfall data of 5 meteorological stations of the Sulaymaniyah province were used, which is important city of the region. The period of 1979- 2013 was used to determining the SPI by using Matlab computer software and calculations were performed on the standardized precipitation index. The results of the study showed that the incidence of short-term (one-month) dry periods in all stations are more than 5, while the incidence of long-term dry periods in the 6, 9 and 12 month periods is much lower, the continuity of dry periods in the 6, 9, and 12-month periods was higher than the 1 and 3 time intervals. This analysis is important because it gives a wide information about longest dry and wet periods for every station.