Özet:

The main aim of the present study is to perform a vulnerability and risk analysis of Turkey along with a scientific evaluation for the results of analysis based on the observed drought events in Turkey by considering the recent trends and approaches on the subject for disaster risk management of the weather and climate extremes and disasters towards the climate change adaptation and reducing its impacts. Economic and social loses caused by weather and climate-related extreme events and disasters have been increasing with a great spatial and inter-annual variability in many regions of the world and in Turkey. The character, severity and impact powers of the extreme weather and climate events and disasters closely depend not only on exposure and vulnerability levels that are varying across temporal and spatial scales, but also depend on economic, social, geographic, demographic, cultural, institutional, governance, and environmental and ecological factors. A large part of Turkey is located over the dry-summer subtropical macro climate belt characterised with many climate and climate-related problems arising from its nature. Turkey is a mid to high climate risk-prone country, with respect to not only present climate, climate change and variability, but also future climate. Turkey is also one of the South-eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean countries that are considerably vulnerable to desertification processes varying mid to high degrees. In the study, a Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) was used for determining “Turkey’s ‘Potential’ Drought Hazard/Disaster Risk.” The SVI is a tool that was originally developed and applied in the United States to help emergency response planners and public health experts and officials geographically identify and map the communities that will most likely need support before, during, and after a hazardous event. The estimation for Turkey’s Vulnerability Index in terms of the impacts of drought events was based on five vulnerability factor classes including “(i) Education statue with one indicator”, “(ii) Demography with four indicators”, “(iii) Economic activity with six indicators mostly related to agricultural activities and production”, “(iv) Public health and health protection statues and public coping capacities with five indicators”, and “(v) Natural environmental features with three indicators.” In this frame, based on a well-known drought risk formula and the climatological drought occurrence probabilities estimated from the standardised precipitation index (SPI) series of Turkey, “Turkey’s Drought Hazard/Disaster ‘Potential’ Risk Modelling and Valuation” were performed and mapped on the main administrative city provinces by using the spatial analysis tools of a geographical information system (GIS).

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