Implementation of the Standardized Precipitation Index in semi-arid North African areas: reply to the discussion of "Drought assessment in a south Mediterranean transboundary catchment".

We are very grateful to the authors Aksoy and Cavus for their constructive contributions to the discussion of our earlier paper "Drought assessment in a south Mediterranean transboundary catchment." Our paper focused on the variability of rainfall and drought patterns in the Medjerda catchment in Tunisia and analysed the underlying causes resulting in these changes. Scope exists to improve the integration of the space–time variability in the drought assessment methodology. Different drought indices and statistical methods are employed in the study. The discussion of the article concentrates almost exclusively on the use of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and some mistyped equations. In this reply, we clarify the problematic points of misunderstanding and discuss the classification of droughts based on the SPI values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]