Agriculture is a significant economic sector in Hungary. As a result of climate change, farmers can face extreme weather situations and their consequences (inland excess water, water shortage, drought, extremely high or low temperatures, yield loss) more often than before. Focusing on drought conditions in Szarvas town area (South-Eastern region of Hungary) we analysed temperature, precipitation and groundwater table level data of 4 monitoring wells between 2002 and 2021. In our study we used mainly the yearly average values. The Mann Kendall test was used to evaluate the data. Palfai Drought Index was calculated to quantify the level of drought. We found increasing trend in yearly average temperature, decreasing trend in groundwater level at most part of the area, no significant trend in yearly sum of precipitation and Palfai Drought Index. According to our data, the relative frequency of drought-free years in the Szarvas region is 30%, moderate and stronger droughts occurred in 50% of years, and the relative frequency of severe droughts was 10%. Severe droughts (PaDI 10-15) occurred twice in the 20 years studied, in 2003 and 2012. These data show the probability of a future drought or drought-free year. Our results hint to the importance of irrigation and irrigation development in the region

: drought, Palfai Drought Index, precipitation, groundwater level

agronomy

Presentation: poster