The importance of early warning system on drought, heat waves and fire weather in changing climate

Between 2000 and 2021, on average 4.5 % of the area of the EU was affected annually by droughts due to low precipitation, high evaporation and heatwaves; with particular impacts in 2003, 2012, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Apart from the significant human mortality recorded during some of those events, the highest impacts were seen in croplands and forests, with around 62 and 52 thousand km² respectively affected on average annually (EEA, 2023). The average annual losses due to weather- and climate-related extremes increased from around EUR 9.7 billion in 1981-1990 to 15.3 billion EUR in 2011-2020. Heatwaves are responsible for over 13% of the total losses while an estimated +/-8% are caused by droughts, forest fires and cold waves together (EEA, 2023). The extent of drought-affected areas has gradually increased over the last two decades and is likely to increase further if no effective global mitigation and EU wide adaptation strategies are established.

Therefore, the European Commission launched the European Drought Observatory for Resilience and Adaptation project (EDORA), aiming to improve drought resilience and adaptation throughout the EU. The EDORA project aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, methods and best practices for drought monitoring and for the assessment of sectoral risk and impacts.

Early warning systems play a key role in the disaster risk prevention. In the context of climate change, natural hazards such as drought, heat waves and wildfires have become a serious problem not only in the Mediterranean region, but also in Central Europe. This fact is the biggest motivation for the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMI) to establish early warning system(s), which could alert national bodies, policy makers, stakeholders and the general public in near-real time to help mitigate the negative impacts of these events. Drought monitoring in Slovakia has been running since 2015 and it covers diverse parts of water cycle: meteorological, soil, surface water and underground water. Besides the drought occurrence, great importance is placed on engaging experts from agriculture and forestry, who have joined the national reporting network on drought impacts. In summer 2023 the meteorological drought monitoring will be augmented through an operational gridded monitoring tool, which will be one of the URANOS project outputs.

The most recent activities of SHMI are connected with the Clim4Cast project (Interreg CE) - Central European Alliance for Increasing Climate Change Resilience to Combined Consequences of Drought, Heatwave, and Fire Weather through Regionally-Tuned Forecasting. The project builds on the DriDanube project (Interreg DTP) and aims to create a step-change in preparedness for DHF events (drought, heatwaves and fire weather). The project partners will jointly develop and establish a multi-temporal DHF forecast, which will be integrated into existing national drought monitoring platforms of the 7 participating countries. The project output will serve as an early warning system that can be used by diverse stakeholders and implemented into national legislative frameworks, e.g. as a part of adaptation strategies. Along with the preparation of the warning system, a communication strategy for DHF events, and the national actions plans, which will set up proper response mechanisms, will be proposed. To make Clim4Cast successful it will be necessary to involve key stakeholders from the very beginning of the project, as associated partners regularly consulted on the needs and requirements of diverse sectors.