A joint scientific team of the Global Change Research Centre AS CR p.r.i. and Mendel University in Brno, which stands behind the portal www.intersucho.cz and operates the Integrated drought monitoring system (IDMS), has just released a forecasting system of the state and intensity of agricultural drought. The system provides daily updated maps of the Czech Republic with forecasts for the next ten days.
In reaction to this year’s drought, which hit the entire Czech Republic and had a significant impact on crop yields, the research team operating the IDMS primarily for the needs of agronomists, but also for fruit growers, foresters and growers of vegetables and vine has started to provide an early warning system and a forecast of the state of drought. The system provides two layers of maps showing the intensity of drought and soil water saturation. The forecast, which shows the likely progress of drought throughout the Czech Republic for the following ten days, will be updated every 24 hours.
So far, the main output of the IDMS has been monitoring of drought in the form of maps showing the current situation in the CR. The map outputs are updated weekly and, at a resolution of 500 x 500 m for the whole country, they provide data on soil moisture, the degree of drought as deviations from the long-term average, satellite outputs to assess the condition of vegetation, information on the impact of drought on agricultural production and the probabilistic prediction of the state of drought. Recently the monitoring of drought has been enhanced with a ten-day forecast.