Beyond Traditional Drought Paradigms: Identifying and Understanding ‘Green Drought’ in Central Europe

The traditional understanding of drought events assumes a progression starting with meteorological drought – anomalies in key drought-driving factors – followed by impacts on agricultural crops and forest stands, and subsequently a decline in streamflow and reservoir levels. If these impacts reach sufficient intensity and duration, socio-economic drought may be declared. However, the 2025 drought in Central Europe challenged this paradigm by lacking the expected agricultural and forestry impacts, misleading even experienced climatologists. In this study, we analyze the sequence of events during the 2025 drought in Central Europe, which combined recurring meteorological drought episodes with significant hydrological drought, yet coincided with lush vegetation – a condition referred to as “green drought.” Using previously unavailable datasets, we demonstrate that despite seemingly favorable vegetation conditions, the productivity of both agricultural crops and forests declined. Furthermore, we examine drought events from 2001 to 2025 across Central Europe to identify potential occurrences of similar “green drought” phenomena.

 

We acknowledge support from AdAgriF - Advanced methods of greenhouse gases emission reduction and sequestration in agriculture and forest landscape for climate change mitigation (CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004635).