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Changes in drought occurrence and intensity in the context of climate change in Slovakia

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Abstract

Drought is a natural phenomenon that occurred in Central Europe in the past, but it is becoming a more serious problem due to the changes in its occurrence and intensity related to climate change. The main aim of this paper was to determine changes in air temperature and precipitation amounts in Slovakia from 1931 to 2020 and to identify changes in drought occurrence and intensity using the Standardised Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Cluster analysis was used to determine regions with similar drought occurrences. For each of the identified five clusters, drought characteristics were determined and compared between two reference periods 1961–1990 and 1991–2020. While a decrease in the number of months with SPEI-1 below − 1 was observed in autumn, spring and summer months showed a drying tendency. Overall, we can say that we observed a shift in drought occurrence from autumn and winter months to spring and summer months. This is an important finding for the agriculture or forestry because it affects work management and planning. The clearest tendency in drought events was observed in the western part of Slovakia covering areas with agriculturally intensive land use. Besides prolonging drought events, there was also a higher accumulated deficit for each event. The increase in drought intensity was not spatially consistent over the cluster area, mostly reaching a slight decline of about − 0.1 to − 0.3, which means slight intensification of drought periods in 1991–2020.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by project Clim4Cast (Central European Alliance for Increasing Climate Change Resilience to Combined Consequences of Drought, Heatwave, and Fire Weather through Regionally-Tuned Forecasting; CE0100059) co-funded by European Union funds (ERDF – Interreg Central Europe).

Funding

This work was supported by project Clim4Cast (Central European Alliance for Increasing Climate Change Resilience to Combined Consequences of Drought, Heatwave, and Fire Weather through Regionally Tuned Forecasting; CE0100059) co-funded by European Union funds (ERDF–Interreg Central Europe).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute, Jeseniova 17, 83315, Bratislava, Slovakia

    L. Labudová, G. Ivaňáková, P. Faško & P. Kajaba

  2. Department of Environmental Ecology and Landscape Management, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynská Dolina, Ilkovičova 6, 842 15, Bratislava, Slovakia

    M. Labuda

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  1. L. Labudová
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data homogenisation was provided by PK. LL and GI performed statistical and cluster analysis. PF and ML discussed the results. LL took a leading role in writing and reviewing the manuscript, but PF, GI and ML contributed to the writing and actively engaged in revisions. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to L. Labudová.

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Labudová, L., Ivaňáková, G., Faško, P. et al. Changes in drought occurrence and intensity in the context of climate change in Slovakia. Theor Appl Climatol 155, 4009–4022 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-024-04864-3

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