Hojat Yazdanpanah - Ph.D. student of Climatology, Tarbiat Moallem University and member of Meteorological organization of Iran, Tehran, Iran
Tabatabaei - Assistant Professor, Water Engineering Department, Agricultural Faculty, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, P.O. Box ۱۱۵, IRAN
Soleimanitabar - M.A of Geography, teacher training University, Tehran,Iran

One of the natural hazards is drought, which causes by shortage of raining and humidity deficit. When a drought occurs dramatic social, economic and environmental effects are inevitable. Because of the vast impact of drought, it is essential to be monitored timely and spatially. In order to evaluation and mapping of drought severity in Azerbaijan province, it used the SPI (standard precipitation index) model and GIs. It used GIs as a tool for mapping of the area in relation to SPI amount. It studied drought periods in east Azerbaijan using 15 years climatic data (1986- 2000). Nearly 3.2% and 95.5 % of the province climate is dry and semi-dry respectively and only 1.3% of province has Mediterranean Climate. According to analyzing of the long time period of SPI value, the dry and wet periods were replicated. Two dry periods are happened in 1989-1990 and 1995 to 2000.The most dry year has been happened in 1990 in all stations of the east Azerbaijan province. In 2000, nearly 23 % of the total area was affected by severe, 35 % by moderate drought, 32% are Normal and the other area (9%) of province had a wet year. It concludes that drought is a natural climatic feature of the regions and occurs time by time in specific periods. The study shows that the duration and severity of drought is more in the western than in the central and eastern parts of the province.

Drought, SPI model, GIs and Azerbaijan