engleski

Drought Vulnerability in Croatia

Drought is the most frequent hazard which causes the highest economic losses among all hydro-meteorological events in Croatia, especially in the agricultural sector. The climate assessment according to the aridity index shows that the susceptibility to desertification is present in the warm part of the year and mostly pronounced in the Adriatic region and eastern lowland. The evidence of larger frequencies of extreme droughts in the last decade is apparent. These were the motivations to study the drought risk assessment in Croatia and to develop the vulnerability map. This map is a complex combination of the geomorphologic and climatological inputs (maps) that are presumed to be natural factors which modify the amount of moisture in the soil. The first version of the vulnerability map developed from the slope map, solar irradiation and coefficient of the variation of precipitation is updated by inclusion of optional parameters: the soil types and the land cover classes. The recommended procedure in the framework of Drought Management Centre for Southeastern Europe is modified and adopted in this study. The obtained results for Croatia show the most sensitive areas to drought at the southern Adriatic coast and over the eastern continental lowland.

drought ; aridity index ; drought vulnerability map

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