Meteorological Drought Occurrence in Slovakia

Slovakia is located in the Central Europe, and its complex surface consists of mountains, valleys, but also lowlands, which are crucial for agricultural production. In the neighbouring countries, especially in Hungary and the Czech Republic, there has been paid great attention to drought occurrence for a longer time. In Slovakia, hydrological drought assessment was more often under investigation than the meteorological aspect of the drought in the past. The regionally developed methods were primarily used for its estimation, while the internationally established indicators were rarely applied. In the last years, the drought became to be discussed more frequently in the Slovak climatology, which led to the start of operational drought monitoring in Slovakia in 2015. Drought periods, which occurred in the last years and caused also yield losses in agriculture, raised the interest of the public and experts from different economic sectors in this phenomenon. The intersectoral approach seems to be the crucial way of further drought research.