Drought Intensity

The chart above shows the drought intensity in the Czech Republic during a 218-year period from 1804 to 2021 in monthly step. One can see that periods of severe or even extreme drought have already been observed in previous centuries. For example, the majority of the year 1835 is classified as extremely dry. The most extreme and also longest lasting severe and extreme drought period was, however, observed at the very end of the period of analysis, between the years 2015 and May 2020. Overall 2.1 % of months are considered as extreme drought, three quarters of them occurred between 2015 and 2020. The impacts of drought depend not just on its actual severity, but also its duration.
Given the current climate change, it is assumed that droughts will be more frequent and also severe in the future. Even though climate models do not expect major changes in the overall precipitation amount, the precipitation distribution throughout the year can change. Also at higher temperatures and equal precipitation amount, the rate of evaporation is higher, thus leading to less water available in the landscape.