Analysis of Drought Periods in the Zarqa basin, Using Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and Geographic Information System (GIS) during 1984-2015

The main objective of this research is to monitor the drought Periods in Zarqa basin, a twenty-four metrological stations were selected for the period (1984-2015 (covering 31 year). (SPI) was used to analyze rainfall records during the study period. In addition, the geographic information system (GIS) was employed to generate spatial interpolation maps. The main results were as following: 1. The Zarqa basin is currently suffering from generic drought conditions of different magnitude;the drought percentage reached an equal 47.7% for all areas (parts) of the basin, with a record of complete drought lasting for 5 years; /1994-1995/1996-1998/1999-2010/2011-2001/2002 1993. While the only wet year for all stations was 2012/2011. 2. The complete drought periods (mentioned above) accounted around 16.2% of the study timeline. 3. With respect to the changes that have occurred in the areal distribution of rainfall, the most prominent result was a decrease in wetland area of the basin during the study period by 0.8%.