Acta Univ. Agric. Silvic. Mendelianae Brun. 2019, 67(4), 925-938 | DOI: 10.11118/actaun201967040925

Repository of Drought Event Impacts Across the Danube Catchment Countries Between 1981 and 2016 Using Publicly Available Sources

Jiří Jakubínský¹, Monika Bláhová¹, Lenka Bartošová¹, Klára Steinerová¹, Jan Balek¹, Petra Dížková¹, Daniela Semerádová¹, Daniel Alexandru², Galia Bardarska³, Sabina Bokal⁴, Goran Borojević⁵, Andreea Bucur⁶, Ksenija Cindrić Kalin⁷, Anda Claudia Barbu², Barbara Debre⁸, Milica Đorđević⁵, Ines Đurić⁵, Bianca Florina Mircea², Sandra Gatarić⁵, Gregor Gregorič⁹, Stefan Hasenauer⁸, Mirjana Ivanov¹⁰, Andrea Kircsi¹¹, Lívia Labudová¹², Maroš Turňa¹², Ivana Marinović⁷, Mihajlo Marković⁵, Elena Mateescu², Gal Oblišar⁹, Andreea Popescu², Zorica Srđević¹³, Tatjana Savić-Šljivić¹⁴, Dejan Supić⁵, Andreja Sušnik⁹, Natasa Pazin¹⁰, Miras Drljevic¹⁰, Tonka Kuc¹⁰, Luka Mitrovic¹⁰, Slavica Micev¹⁰, Wolfgang Wagner^1,6, Josef Eitzinger¹⁵, Vojko Daneu^1,15, Veit Blauhut¹⁶, Kerstin Stahl¹⁶, Miroslav Trnka¹

¹ Global Change Research Institute CAS, Bělidla 986/4a, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic

² National Meteorological Administration of Romania, Sos. București-Ploiești nr.97, Sector 1, 013686 Bucharest, Romania

³ Association "Global Water Partnership-Bulgaria", 14 Hristo Belchev Str., Sofia 1000, Bulgaria

⁴ GWP CEE Regional Secretariat, Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute, Jeseniova 17, 833 15 Bratislava, Slovakia

⁵ University of Banja Luka, Faculty of Agriculture, Institute for the Agroecology and Soil Sciences, Bulevar Vojvode Petra Bojovica 1A, Banja Luka, 78000, Bosnia and Herzegovina

⁶ Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation, Technische Universität Wien, Gußhausstrasse 27-29/E120-01-1 (CB0322), 1040 Vienna, Austria

⁷ Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service, Grič 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

⁸ EODC Earth Observation Data Centre for Water Resources Monitoring GmbH, Franz-Grill-Strasse 9, 1030 Vienna, Austria

⁹ Slovenian Environment Agency, Vojkova 1b, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

¹⁰ Institute of Hydrometeorology and Seismology of Montenegro, IV proleterske 19. 81000 Podgorica, Montenegro

¹¹ Hungarian Meteorological Service, H-1024 Budapest, Kitaibel Pál u. 1., Budapest, Hungary

¹² Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute, Jeséniova 17, 833 15 Bratislava, Slovakia

¹³ University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Agriculture, Trg D. Obradovica 8, 21000 Novi Sad, Republic of Serbia

¹⁴ Republic Hydrometeorological Service of Serbia, Kneza Višeslava 66, 110 00 Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

¹⁵ Institute of Meteorology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences BOKU, Gregor Mendel Strasse 33, 1180 Wien, Austria

¹⁶ Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Fahnenbergplatz, D-79098 Freiburg, Germany

Drought directly and indirectly affects human society in a number of ways. In many regions of the world climate change will exasperate the effects of droughts, affect national economies more intensely. The main aim of this article was to catalogue and analyze the drought impacts in the 11 Central and South Eastern European states located in the Danube river basin. The identification of dry episodes was based on information from publicly available sources, namely, newspaper and journal articles that reported drought impacts. Information on drought impact occurrences was classified into one of five defined categories in which the drought impact report was most clearly manifested (i.e., agriculture, forestry, soil systems, wildfires and hydrology). In terms of the spatial distribution of drought impacts, individual recorded events were analyzed at the level of EU NUTS regions (or their equivalent in non-EU countries). The analysis highlights country-specific vulnerability to drought. Furthermore, gradual increases in drought events and the number of reported impacts were identified, which was particularly evident in the agricultural sector.

Keywords: drought impact, Danube basin, agriculture, climate change, water stress

Grants and funding:

This article was supported by the Danube Transnational Programme, project DriDanube - Drought Risk in the Danube Region, and by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of CR within the National Sustainability Program I (NPU I), grant number LO1415.

Received: April 1, 2019; Accepted: June 20, 2019; Published: August 26, 2019  Show citation