Theor. Appl. Climatol.
89, 143–153 (2007)
DOI 10.1007/s00704-005-0227-z
Printed in The Netherlands
1
Department of Applied Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Athens, Greece
2
National Observatory of Athens, Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, Athens, Greece
Spatial and temporal analysis of drought in Greece using
the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
I. Livada1 and V. D. Assimakopoulos2
With 3 Figures
Received June 2, 2004; revised February 10, 2005; accepted December 1, 2005
Published online December 28, 2006 # Springer-Verlag 2006
Summary
In the present study the Standardised Precipitation Index
(SPI) is used to detect drought events in spatial and
temporal basis. Using monthly precipitation data from 23
stations well spread over Greece and for a period of
51 years, a classification of drought is performed, based on
its intensity and duration. Results indicate that, mild and
moderate droughts reduce from north to south and from
west to east on the 3- and 6-months time scale, while for the
class of severe drought, the frequencies in the southern part
of Greece are higher than in the other parts of the country.
Furthermore the frequency of occurrence of severe and
extreme drought conditions is very low over the whole
Greek territory on the 12-month running time scale. Finally
SPI was compared to the ‘‘de Martonne aridity index (I)’’
and a satisfactory correlation between them was found.
1. Introduction
Drought is a natural local or regional phenom-
enon, its basic cause being the lack of precipita-
tion over a time period. According to Wilhite and
Glantz (1985), drought may be studied from the
environmental or the water resources point of
view. Environmental droughts can be classified
into a) meteorological drought, b) hydrological
drought and c) agricultural drought. This study
is focused on meteorological drought, which can
be expressed by the so-called drought indices.
The most common indices included in this cate-
gory are, I) deviations of precipitation for a
time period from ‘‘normal values’’ for the same
period of time, II) effective precipitation, which
is merely sufficient to counteract evapotranspira-
tion and to maintain soil moisture above the
wilting point, III) the Standardized Precipitation
Index (SPI), devised by McKee et al. (1993,
1995), which quantifies the precipitation deficit
and may be applied in areas with different
climates for various time scales (Edwards and
McKee, 1997), IV) the Palmer Drought Severity
Index (PDSI), proposed by Palmer (1965), which
is the most frequently used meteorological
drought index.
In the study of Heim (2002), regarding drought
indices currently applied in the U.S.A., a number
of the most ordinary ones was provided. It seems
that the most commonly used index is the one
proposed by Palmer (Palmer, 1965; Alley, 1984),
which depends on rainfall, temperature, evapo-
transpiration and soil moisture. The Bhalme and
Mooley Drought Index (BMDI), proposed by
Bhalme and Mooley (1980) is also a simple and
less complex index. Furthermore, de Martonne
(1926) proposed the aridity index (I) to define
climatic limits of deserts, prairies and forests.
This index is based on monthly precipitation
144 I. Livada and V. D. Assimakopoulos
amounts (in mm) and air temperature (
C) values
and is a successful indicator of aridity.
The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
devised by McKee et al. (1993, 1995) for the
definition of meteorological drought, is a valu-
able tool for the estimation of the intensity and
duration of drought events. This index may also
be applied both on small time scales, used in
agricultural studies, and on large time scales, as
it is common in underground waters, river flows
and lake water levels (Hayes et al., 1999). Later
studies proved that the SPI is in good agreement
with the corresponding values of the PDSI
(Keyantash and Dracup, 2002) and identifies
emerging droughts months sooner than the
Palmer Index (Hayes, 2000).
Agnew and Chappell (1999) and Agnew
(2000) report that the use of datasets longer than
40 years in some regions for the estimation of
mean precipitation makes the computation of
the SPI independent of the average base period.
Guttman (1991, 1993, 1998 and 1999) reports
that at least a fifty years long dataset is necessary
for the definition of the SPI on time scales smal-
ler than 12-months, while longer datasets are
required on 24-, 36- or 48-month periods. Hayes
et al. (1999) considered that for small time
scales, thirty years long datasets may be used.
Finally, Wilhite (1995) applied the SPI in
Nebraska on time periods of 3-, 6-, 12-, 24-
and 48-months using a fifty years period dataset.
Obviously, the above mentioned papers require
relatively long time series of precipitation data
from each location, with a mean monthly statis-
tical value equal to the new averaging climatic
value defined by the World Meteorological
Organization, which indicates the 1961–1990
time period.
Loukas et al. (2002) also studied regional
droughts in Greece using the Palmer Moisture
Anomaly Index (z-index) and the BMDI Index.
In this study the available data covered a period
of 27 years, (1957–1983). The purpose of the
present work was to study the spatial and tem-
poral variations of monthly precipitations over
Greece, using 51 years (1950–2000) of monthly
rainfall data from the available meteorological
monitoring network, by applying the Standard-
ized Precipitation Index (SPI), to detect on a
regional basis, drought frequency, drought inten-
sity and drought duration.
2. Rainfall data
In this study, the homogeneous monthly rainfall
data of 23 meteorological stations (from the
National Meteorological Service), which are well
distributed over the Greek territory and cover the
1950–2000 period, is used (Fig. 1). The climate
of Greece in areas with low altitude is Mediter-
ranean characterized by dry and hot summers
(Mariolopoulos, 1938). The climate of mountai-
nous regions of North, Central and South inland
Greece, is typical mountainous with high annual
Fig. 1. Chart of the precipitation
stations network. Areas A, C,
D and E are defined according
to Loukas’ classification scheme.
Area B was dilated towards the
south
 Spatial and temporal analysis of drought in Greece using the SPI 145

precipitations and strong positive gradients with
elevation especially in the Western parts of
Greece. The mean annual precipitation in Greece
is about 900 mm, but there is a strong difference
between rainfall amounts in western and eastern
parts of the country. The alpine chain of Pindos
and the mountains of the Peloponese, with an
orientation from NW to SE divide the country
into two parts. The Western part receives more
rainfall, while the eastern part receives in an
annual basis at least 200 mm less.
The Greek territory, on the basis of rainfall
amounts, was classified by a factor analysis in
five homogeneous areas (Loukas et al., 2001).
The precipitation stations were divided in five
areas with a similar classification scheme as
proposed by Loukas et al. (2001). Figure 1 shows
the classification of the precipitation stations
included in this study. In our case a small mod-
ification of the classification scheme proposed by
Loukas et al. (2001), consisted of the dilatation
of the southern end of area B. This change was
done without affecting the accuracy of the calcu-
lations since the station of Skyros is located in
the boundary between areas B and C and more-
over the results of the present study indicated that
its behavior regarding drought makes it more
compatible with area B. Area A, refers to the
Western part of Greece where the highest annual
precipitation occurs. Area B refers to the north-
ern part of Greece. Area C identifies the Central
part of Greece. Area D identifies the greater
Athens area and finally Area E refers to the
Central and Southern part of the Aegean Sea.
Table 1 shows the seasonal and annual rainfall
amounts of the 23 meteorological stations used

Table 1. Mean seasonal and annual rainfall amounts. The first value corresponds to the period 1950–2000, while the second to
the normal (1961–1990)

Station Time period Winter Spring Summer Autumn Annual

Area A
Kerkyra (Kr) 1950–2000 462=448 197=196 40=39 421=404 1119=1087
Ioannina (Io) 1950–2000 427=418 241=241 101=101 338=315 1106=1076
Agrinio (Ag) 1950–2000 389=395 179=178 54=56 310=314 931=943
Argostoli (Ar) 1950–2000 424=425 165=163 26=27 316=311 932=925
Tripoli (Tr) 1950–2000 338=371 174=167 61=59 216=217 789=815
Methoni (Me) 1950–2000 336=341 121=111 10=8 245=247 713=707
Area B
Alexandroupoli (Al) 1950–2000 204=208 121=128 59=54 164=157 549=547
Kavala (Kv) 1950–2000 185=189 125=129 85=89 142=141 537=547
Limnos (Li) 1950–2000 213=218 106=104 35=40 131=116 486=479
Mytilini (Mi) 1950–2000 352=373 141=143 11=13 154=141 658=670
Skyros (Sk) 1950–2000 209=220 94=93 18=21 114=110 436=444
Area C
Kozani (Kz) 1950–2000 118=123 137=140 105=106 149=146 509=515
Larissa (La) 1950–2000 125=121 113=105 56=59 144=135 438=420
Florina (Fl) 1950–2000 193=203 175=174 102=103 194=178 663=658
Thessaloniki (Th) 1950–2000 120=119 115=121 72=80 127=120 434=440
Area D
Athens (At) 1950–2000 155=159 94=89 19=18 119=109 386=376
Area E
Iraklio (Ir) 1950–2000 233=246 99=103 4=5 139=154 476=508
Rodos (Rd) 1950–2000 425=413 131=116 2=3 169=158 728=690
Milos (Ml) 1950–2000 213=218 87=81 5=6 116=109 420=414
Samos (Sm) 1950–2000 438=458 167=153 6=9 172=167 783=787
Kythira (Ky) 1950–2000 282=286 93=98 6=7 158=152 539=543
Naxos (Nx) 1950–2000 193=200 76=78 5=6 94=92 368=376
Santorini (Sn) 1950–2000 183=197 81=82 2=2 68=70 334=351
146 I. Livada and V. D. Assimakopoulos

in this study. From this table it is obvious that the
above classification scheme agrees with the cli-
mate of Greece and its interannual variability. It
is noticeable that in all stations the mean monthly
precipitation is statistically equal to the new cli-
matic average values of the period 1961–1990
defined by WMO, so the length of the time series
used make the computation of SPI independent
of the base average period.
3. Methodology to estimate SPI
The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was
designed by McKee et al. (1993) to quantify the
precipitation deficit for multiple time scales.
These time scales reflect different water re-
sources. In this study the SPI was calculated on
3-, 6- and 12-month time scales, which corre-
spond to the past 3, 6, 12 months of observed
precipitation totals respectively. These time
scales reflect the soil moisture conditions (small
time scale) or the underground waters, river flows
and lake water levels (large time scales).
The SPI is defined for each of the above time
scales as the difference between monthly precip-
itation on 3-, 6-, or 12-months time scale (xi)
and the mean value (x), divided by the standard
deviation (s),
xi  x
SPI ¼ ð1Þ
s distribution, its thresholds can be combined with
where xi is the monthly rainfall amount and x, s
are the mean and standard deviation of rainfall
calculated from the whole time series of monthly
values.
Considering that the monthly precipitation
data may consist of many zero values it is ex-
pected that precipitation values do not follow
the normal distribution. Thus, one must perform
initially a transformation of the data in order
to follow a normal distribution (Geerts, 2002;
Hayes et al., 1999; Hayes, 2000; Edwards and
McKee, 1997; Komuscu, 1999). Therefore, a
theoretical cumulative probability distribution
function is adjusted on the precipitation data.
Edwards and McKee (1997), applied the two-
parameter gamma distribution for the calculation
of SPI, while Guttman (1999), applied the Pear-
son type III distribution. Thus, the cumulative
distribution of the precipitation data is trans-
formed to a normal distribution with a mean
value of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. In this
way the calculated SPI values are percentages of
the standard deviation, while the extreme values
have about the same low frequency of occurrence
in all places for a long time period. However,
based on this methodology it is difficult to iden-
tify locations that are more ‘‘drought prone’’ than
others (Hayes et al., 1999).
Various drought intensities were defined by
McKee et al. (1995) and Komuscu (1999), for
all time scales together with their corresponding
probabilities. Later on, Agnew (2000) suggested a
new classification scheme for drought classes by
adopting slightly different thresholds (Table 2).
Thus, the SPI is a tool for the investigation of
drought by taking into account its intensity and
duration. Because the SPI values fit a normal
the corresponding probabilities. According to
Edwards and McKee (1997) values less than
2.0 (extreme drought) are expected to appear
2 to 3 times in 100 years. In the present study
the classification of McKee et al. (1995) and
Komuscu (1999) was used to estimate drought
conditions for the Greek territory.

Table 2. Classification scale for the SPI values

SPI Probability of Komuscu (1999) and McKee Agnew (2000)

occurrence et al. (1995) drought classes drought classes
Less than 2.00 0.023 Extreme drought
Less than 1.65 0.050 Extreme drought
Less than 1.50 0.067 Severe drought
Less than 1.28 0.100 Severe drought
Less than 1.00 0.159 Moderate drought
Less than 0.84 0.201 Moderate drought
Less than 0.50 0.309 No drought
Less than 0.00 0.500 Mild drought No drought
 Spatial and temporal analysis of drought in Greece using the SPI 147

Table 3. Linear correlation coefficients between SPI values for 3-months (a) and 12-months (b) time scales and within areas A,
B, C, D and E. Shaded values correspond to very high statistically significant correlation coefficient values at the significance
level of 0.05
148 I. Livada and V. D. Assimakopoulos

4. Analysis of the SPI calculations In each area and on the 3- and 12-month time
scales linear correlation coefficients between the
Initially, the monthly precipitation data were
SPI values of each station and all the others of the
adjusted on the two-parameter theoretical Wei-
same group were calculated (Table 3). From these
bull distribution, and subsequently they were
tables one can notice that a very high statisti-
normalized. This method presents a better adjust-
cally significant linear correlation (values greater
ment on the data than the two-parameter gamma
than 0.1 are statistically significant at greater than
or the Pearson type III distribution. Thus, the
95%) exists between drought conditions within
normalized SPI values represent in the same
each area. The correlation coefficients between
way wet and dry conditions. The SPI values were
station Sk and those of area C, are lower than
estimated separately for all 23 stations, which
those of station Sk and area B. This indicates that
were classified in five areas (Fig. 1), on 1-, 3-,
the dilatation of area B towards the south was
6- and 12-months time scale conditions.
successful and led to a better grouping of stations.

Table 4. SPI frequencies for drought conditions according the classification of McKee et al. (1995) on 3-, 6- and 12-months
time scale. 1st value is for mild drought conditions, 2nd value is for moderate drought conditions, 3rd value is for severe drought
conditions and 4th value is for extreme drought conditions

Station 3-months scale 6-months scale 12-months scale

Area A
Kerkyra 0.234=0.152=0.082=0 0.270=0.209=0.028=0 0.336=0.141=0.058=0
Ioannina 0.303=0.138=0.066=0 0.300=0.193=0.023=0 0.374=0.140=0.047=0
Agrinio 0.261=0.166=0.054=0 0.273=0.206=0.021=0 0.306=0.146=0.048=0
Argostoli 0.257=0.125=0.092=0 0.244=0.209=0.028=0 0.296=0.168=0.045=0
Tripoli 0.262=0.141=0.075=0 0.310=0.165=0.041=0 0.344=0.092=0.090=0
Methoni 0.220=0.092=0.126=0 0.234=0.201=0.043=0 0.334=0.171=0=0
Mean 0.256=0.135=0.083=0 0.272=0.197=0.031=0 0.332=0.143=0.048=0
Area B
Alexandroupoli 0.290=0.148=0.064=0 0.306=0.186=0.023=0 0.290=0.161=0.042=0
Kavala 0.270=0.139=0.070=0 0.305=0.125=0.073=0 0.219=0.126=0.089=0
Limnos 0.290=0.098=0.097=0 0.301=0.155=0.051=0 0.306=0.188=0.022=0
Mytilini 0.239=0.072=0.118=0 0.254=0.184=0.043=0 0.331=0.151=0.038=0
Skyros 0.233=0.105=0.103=0 0.305=0.132=0.068=0 0.288=0.190=0.017=0
Mean 0.264=0.112=0.090=0 0.294=0.156=0.052=0 0.287=0.163=0.042=0
Area C
Kozani 0.277=0.152=0.059=0 0.303=0.185=0.035=0 0.339=0.203=0.002=0
Larisa 0.290=0.095=0.090=0 0.344=0.153=0.048=0 0.316=0.186=0.027=0
Florina 0.304=0.105=0.080=0 0.297=0.139=0.066=0 0.331=0.124=0.059=0
Thessaloniki 0.316=0.121=0.074=0 0.308=0.161=0.043=0 0.333=0.143=0.057=0
Mean 0.297=0.118=0.076=0 0.313=0.160=0.048=0 0.330=0.164=0.036=0
Area D
Athens 0.248=0.082=0.066=0.038 0.260=0.157=0.074=0 0.266=0.163=0.047=0
Area E
Iraklio 0.195=0.069=0.143=0 0.245=0.137=0.086=0 0.311=0.225=0.008=0
Rodos 0.192=0.082=0.144=0 0.239=0.147=0.086=0 0.293=0.151=0.062=0
Milos 0.161=0.080=0.149=0 0.250=0.107=0.096=0 0.331=0.201=0.010=0
Samos 0.205=0.074=0.139=0 0.241=0.142=0.082=0 0.364=0.163=0=0
Kythira 0.220=0.057=0.138=0 0.247=0.138=0.087=0 0.313=0.083=0.047=0.032
Naxos 0.180=0.071=0.153=0 0.271=0.115=0.094=0 0.395=0.143=0.027=0
Santorini 0.148=0.043=0.199=0 0.242=0.100=0.109=0 0.275=0.051=0.107=0.022
Mean 0.185=0.068=0.152=0 0.248=0.127=0.091=0 0.326=0.145=0.037=0.003
 Spatial and temporal analysis of drought in Greece using the SPI 149

In the present study, the percentages of drought
conditions for the 1-month time scale were
between 31 and 46%, values that are in agreement
with the results of Loukas et al. (2002).
Regarding the 3-, 6- and 12-months time
scales for each station, the frequency of drought
appearance was calculated according to the clas-
sification proposed by Mc Kee et al. (1995)
(Table 4). From this table, it is evident that the
frequency of occurrence of mild and moderate
droughts reduces moving from north (areas B
and C) to south (area E) and from west (area
A) to east (areas D and E), for the 3- and
6-months time scales. Because stations located
in area E (southeastern part of Greece) are char-
acterized by small precipitation amounts during
the hot period of the year, severe drought on a
3-months time scale in this area, exhibits the
highest (twice or more) frequency values. On
the other hand, frequencies for all the drought
classes on a 12-months time scale lay approxi-
mately within the same range of values over the
whole Greek territory.
If all stations are divided in coastal and inland
ones, it results that on the 3-, 6- and 12-months
time scales, the inland stations suffer statistically
more than the coastal ones from mild drought at
the significant level of 0.05 (t-test for differences
between proportions). This result agrees with the
results of Komuscu (1999) for Turkey, only for
the 12-months time scale. Komuscu argues that
for the 3- and 6-months time scale coastal sta-
tions suffer more often from mild droughts than
the inland stations, but the differences between
these frequencies were, probably, not statistically
estimated. However on 3- and 6-months time
scales, the Greek coastal stations experience
more severe drought events than inland ones,
while on a 12-months time scale severe droughts
have almost the same frequency at all stations.
Extreme drought events with low a frequency
of appearance on a 3-months time scale were
observed only in Athens. Furthermore, on a
12-months time scale extreme drought events
were observed in Santorini and Kythira. In all
cases these events were related with cases of high
persistence of drought conditions.
Sequences of successive severe or more
intense drought values of SPI on 6- and 12-
months time scales are examined by the Bessons’
coefficient of persistence (RB þ 1), (Livada and
Asimakopoulos, 2004). Table 5 shows that in
almost all cases and for both time scales, the
persistence, mainly on the 12-months time scale,

Table 5. Besson’s coefficient of persistence for severe or more drought conditions

Station RB þ 1 6-month RB þ 1 6-month Station RB þ 1 6-month RB þ 1 6-month

time scale time scale time scale time scale

Area A
Kerkyra 1.25 8.26 Argostoli 1.18 4.75
Ioannina 1.63 4.45 Tripoli 2.17 5.62
Agrinio 1.46 3.24 Methoni 1.24 0
Area B
Alexandroupoli 1.00 4.79 Mytilini 1.64 5.98
Kavala 1.37 6.85 Skyros 1.82 2.76
Limnos 1.64 2.12
Area C
Kozani 2.25 0.99 Florina 2.80 11.51
Larisa 2.13 3.12 Thessaloniki 2.07 2.67
Area D
Athens 1.89 2.67
Area E
Iraklio 1.55 4.96 Kythira 1.47 3.94
Rodos 1.44 3.71 Naxos 1.54 2.58
Milos 1.54 1.98 Santorini 1.81 12.11
Samos 1.47 5.93
150 I. Livada and V. D. Assimakopoulos

Fig. 2. Mean SPI values for the

12-months time scale in a)
Area A, b) Area B, c) Area C,
d) Area D and e) Area E. Areas
are defined as in Fig. 1

is statistically significant. Statistically insignifi- where severe and extreme drought frequencies
cant values of persistence were observed on the had zero values, and on the 6-months time scale
12-months time scale in Kozani and Methoni, in Alexandroupoli for the same reason. This
Spatial and temporal analysis of drought in Greece using the SPI 151

Fig. 3. Scatter diagram between [(I, SPI), œ]

and [(I, RD), ~] and correlation lines for rep-
resentative stations in areas A (a), B (b), C (c),
D (d) and E (e). Areas are defined as in Fig. 1
152 I. Livada and V. D. Assimakopoulos
persistence on the 12-months time scale was
observed in all other stations and covered mainly
the periods 1988 to 1990 and 1999 to 2000. On
the basis of the available monthly precipitation
data, the mean monthly precipitation during
1988–1990 and 1999–2000 as compared to the
normal values was between 53 and 96%. The
high value of 96% was observed only in area
A, where severe or more drought conditions per-
sisted after 1990.
Severe or more drought conditions were also
observed in Italy over the period 1988–1990
(Rossi and Somma, 1995). According to the study
of the Italian Air Force Meteorological Service the
position of the 500 hPa isobaric surface over the
Mediterranean basin, during 1988–1990 was sig-
nificantly higher than the reference average values.
Thus, the presence of persistent anticyclones dur-
ing the entire decade 1980–1990 lead to lower pre-
cipitation values than the long-term average ones.
Severe or more drought conditions as observed
in area A after 1990 were also found in most of
southern of Spain (Barcel o, 1995).
A general overview of the time series of the
mean SPI values on a 12-months time scale for each
of the five geographical areas of Greece is shown
in Fig. 2. From this figure it is obvious that from
1950 until 1956 wet conditions prevailed, while
during 1985 to 2000, the country experienced drier
conditions, but there is not a statistically signifi-
cant decreasing trend over the whole time series.
5. Relation between SPI and the aridity
index of E. de Martonne
Among the indices defined for the determination
of irrigation demands (WMO, 1975) is the aridity
index introduced by de Martonne (1926). Its
monthly values are described by the following
equation:
12  Pi
Ii ¼ ð2Þ
Ti þ 10
where, Pi is the monthly precipitation amount
and Ti is the respective mean monthly air-
temperature. The purpose of this index is to iden-
tify the months for which irrigation is necessary,
which in turn depends both on rainfall and ambi-
ent temperature. Thus, irrigation according to
this index becomes necessary when Ii <20. The
investigation of the relation between SPI and I
(I ¼ Ii=12) has shown that on a monthly basis
there is a statistically significant exponential cor-
relation between the above mentioned indices for
all stations, as shown on the representative scat-
ter diagrams for the five homogeneous areas of
the Greek territory (Fig. 3). In order to study
further this exponential relationship the scatter
diagrams between the monthly values of index
I, and the corresponding values of Rainfall
Departures (RD) are also shown in the same
figure. RD is defined as the difference between
the monthly rainfall and its average monthly
value divided by the standard deviation of the
monthly data set values. It was found a statisti-
cally significant linear correlation exists between
I and RD and thus the exponential relationship
between I and SPI should be attributed to the
normalization applied on the monthly precipita-
tion data prior to the estimation of the SPI.
The scatter diagrams for Thessaloniki and
Ioannina are considerably more spread out than
the Iraklio, Athens and Limnos ones because of
the different rainfall regimes of the stations. The
mean individual seasonality index in the northern
part of Greece presented lower values than in
other parts of Greece (Livada and Asimakopoulos,
2005). This indicates a lower interannual vari-
ability of monthly rainfall amounts and thus it
is possible to have the same values of the index
I, associated with high and low monthly rainfall
values.
6. Conclusions
From the estimation of the SPI on 3- , 6- and
12-months time scales it is evident that the fre-
quency of mild and moderate drought conditions
is approximately of the same order of magnitude
over the whole Greek territory. Frequencies pres-
ent a small reduction moving from north to south
and from west to east.
The small precipitation amounts over the south-
ern part of Greece during the summer period
resulted in the highest frequency of SPI values
for severe droughts on the 3-months time scale.
From the study of persistence of severe or
more drought conditions on 6- and 12-months
time scales according to Besson’s coefficient of
persistence, it was found that in almost all cases
and for both time scales, the persistence is statis-
tically significant.
 Spatial and temporal analysis of drought in Greece using the SPI
The main cause of persistence of severe or
more drought conditions is attributed to the
lower than normal precipitation amounts during
1988–1990 and 1999–2000, which in turn was
caused by the immanent anticyclonic systems
over the eastern part of the Mediterranean basin.
The study of the time series of the SPI values on
a 12-months time scale, showed the predomi-
nance of wet conditions from 1950 until 1956
and drier than the normal conditions from 1988
to 2000, however a statistically not significant
trend was found for the whole time series.
Finally, the relation between the SPI values for
a 1-month time scale and the monthly aridity
index I values, indicated that there is a statisti-
cally significant exponential correlation between
the above mentioned indices for all stations. This
correlation is stronger in the southern part of
Greece due to the higher interannual variability
of monthly precipitation in this area.
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23: 1100–1109
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Authors’ addresses: I. Livada, Department of Applied
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V. D. Assimakopoulos (e-mail: vasiliki@meteo.noa.gr),
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I. Metaxa str, 152 36, Greece.