Abstract
One of the negative consequences of climate change is the also increase in the severity, frequency and length of droughts appearing in Europe. The effects of meteorological drought are often substantial, not only for the natural environment but also for humans. Hence, the main purpose of this research was to determine the trends in the severity and occurrence of droughts in Europe during the period 1951–2015 using the standardized precipitation index and the standardized precipitation and evapotranspiration index (SPEI). For six European sites located in mid latitudes, the number of dry months was determined and the trend of their occurrence was examined. Moreover, for the summer months in which the indicators fell below 0, the trend related to the severity of the drought was determined for each site. Despite the absence of a statistically significant trend of an increase in the occurrence of dry months in general, an increase in the severity of droughts occurring in summer was observed for the SPEI over a 6-month scale for all the investigated stations. The highest number of dry months since the 1970s appeared during the last 5 years of analysis.
Highlights
The 2009 report of the European Environment Agency (Collins et al 2009) on the water resources in Europe stated that the relationship between the demand and availability of water has reached a critical point in many parts of the continent as a result of both excessive consumption of water and prolonged droughts
3.1 Temporal courses of climatic factors where: α scale parameter, β shape parameter, γ location parameter, – all estimated from sample D, which for the standardized precipitation and evapotranspiration index (SPEI) is the difference between precipitation (P) and potential evapotranspiration (PET)
S where ws is the probability weighted moments (PWMs) of order s, N is the number of data and Di is the difference between precipitation (P) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) for the month i
Summary
The 2009 report of the European Environment Agency (Collins et al 2009) on the water resources in Europe stated that the relationship between the demand and availability of water has reached a critical point in many parts of the continent as a result of both excessive consumption of water and prolonged droughts. This has led to harmful effects on the functioning of freshwater ecosystems, such as decreases in the water levels of lakes and river flow as well as a reduction in the total surface area of wetlands, which is important for the existence of local fauna.
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