Heat records were broken one after the other this summer. So much so that, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitoring service, this summer was the hottest in the northern hemisphere since records began. This year is likely to be the hottest year on record. According to the institute’s report, the average surface temperature between the beginning of June and the end of August was 16.82 degrees Celsius, i.e. 0.71 degrees Celsius higher than the average August temperature measured from 1991 to 2020.
If the hot summer is good news for tourists, it is less good news for agriculture. Minister of Agriculture István Nagy announced the other day that it is by the beginning of September areas declared for drought damage its size reached 390 thousand hectares. The drought affects 235,000 hectares of corn and 125,000 hectares of sunflowers.
Few people know that the size of the areas affected by drought is determined using the Pálfai drought index. This index is the quotient of the average temperature of the April-August period and the weighted precipitation amount of the October-August period. The index also takes into account the number of hot days, the length of the low rainfall period, the depth of the groundwater and the time-varying water demand of agricultural crops.
The analysis of the Central Statistical Office (KSH) draws attention to the fact that, as a result of climate change, weather extremes, including drought, are occurring more and more frequently worldwide and in our country as well. The harmful effect of drought can be quantified most clearly through the loss to agriculture.
As a result of the drought, Hungarian agriculture sometimes suffers serious damage, as does the entire living world, both cultivated and uncultivated, as well as protected areas, and thus society itself.
The KSH’s review shows that between 2000 and 2022, the proportion of areas affected by dust in Hungary significantly exceeded fifty percent in many cases. 2000, 2003, 2007, 2012, 2013, 2015 and most recently 2022 were particularly drought years. The reason for this is the extreme heat, the lack of precipitation, or the combined occurrence of the two. Thus, for example, in 2012, the national average amount of precipitation was particularly low. The extent of the drought in 2013 was lower than in 2012, mainly due to the much wetter-than-average spring weather. After that, 2014 was drought-free, the condition approaching the lower threshold was characteristic of the Tiszántúl and Alsó-Danuá-völgy areas. Then, in 2015, the country was again hit by a large-scale drought, when five heat waves in the – mostly – summer period affected 42 days. Then, in 2016, another drought-free year followed, but in 2017, the proportion of areas affected by drought reached 51 percent again. The year 2020 was ranked third on the podium for April droughts after 2007 and 1946, yet the annual proportion of areas affected by drought was low, only three percent. Compared to this, in 2021 and 2022, the proportion of areas affected by drought in the country was again high, accounting for 70-85 percent. By the way, drought is part of our country’s climate, it occurs on average four years every ten years.
The Minister of Agriculture also confirmed the other day that water is a key issue for agriculture. In the upcoming tenders of the Rural Development Program, the introduction of water-saving irrigation technologies, the optimization of irrigation systems, and the development of water-saving irrigation infrastructure and related works of art will be supported. So far, more than 1,200 irrigation projects have been supported in the program, for a total amount of HUF 177 billion.
The KSH figures also reveal that the proportion of irrigated areas within the agricultural area varied between 1.5 and 2.6 percent in the last ten years, and was the highest in 2022. In a given year, the size of the irrigated area is greatly influenced by the weather, the amount of precipitation, and its spatial and temporal distribution.
Source: magyarnemzet.hu
