Independent Aridity and Drought Pieces of Evidence Based on Meteorological Data and Tree Ring Data in Southeast Banat, Vojvodina, Serbia

Analyzing temperature, humidity, and precipitation trends in six regions of Thailand using innovative trend analysis

The change of temperature and weather parameters is a major concern affecting sustainable development and impacting various sectors, such as agriculture, tourism, and industry. Changing weather patterns and their impact on water resources are important climatic factors that society is facing. In Thailand, climatological features such as ambient temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation play a substantial role in affecting extreme weather events, which cause damage to the economy, agriculture, tourism, and livelihood of people. To investigate recent serious changes in annual trends of temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation in Thailand, this study used the Mann-Kendall (MK) test and innovative trend analysis (ITA) methods. The MK test showed that all six regions had an upward trend in temperature and humidity index (humidex, how hot the weather feels to the average person), while relative humidity and precipitation showed both upward and downward trends across different regions. The ITA method further confirmed the upward trend in temperature and humidex and showed that most data points fell above the 1:1 line. However, the upward trend in most variables was not significant at the 5% level. The southern and eastern regions showed a significant upward trend in relative humidity and humidex at a 5% level of significance according to the MK test. The output of this study can help in the understanding of weather variations and predict future situations and can be used for adaptation strategies.

Natural multi-hazard risk perception and educational insights among Geography and Tourism students and graduates amid the Covid-19 pandemic

Multi-hazard risk perception is an emerging research topic that has been gaining more and more interest since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, due to the unprecedented interactions between the management practices of the pandemic and of other co-occurring natural hazards, and to the compounded impact of these multi-hazards. This paper aims to investigate the specialization and study level-dependent differences concerning multi-hazard risk perception and hazard-related education insights of future potential specialists in natural hazard-induced risk management and tourism reconstruction. These differences were explored by applying a multi-layer questionnaire on 547 Geography and Tourism students and graduates from two universities in Iași City (Romania) and Novi Sad (Serbia), and performing descriptive and differential statistical analyses. The statistically significant differences that emerged refer to estimations of the impact level of the Covid-19 pandemic and of other natural hazards at different spatial scales and on different socio-economic activities, on the training/career of the respondents, and to the hazard-related education improvements. Up to date, none of the papers in the existing literature integrate both the Covid-19 pandemic and the co-occurrent natural hazards as objects of students' perception, which makes the present study a starting point for such research endeavours.

Impact of Snowpack on the Land Surface Phenology in the Tianshan Mountains, Central Asia

The accumulation and ablation processes of seasonal snow significantly affect the land surface phenology in a mountainous ecosystem. However, the ability of snow to regulate the alpine land surface phenology in the arid regions is not well described in the context of climate change. The impact of snowpack changes on land surface phenology and its driving factors were investigated in the Tianshan Mountains using the land surface phenology metrics derived from satellited products and a snow dataset from downscaled regional climate model simulations covering the period from 1983 to 2015. The results demonstrated that the annual mean start of growing season (SOS) and length of growing season (LOS) experienced a significant (p < 0.05) decrease and increase with a rate of −2.45 days/decade and 2.98 days/decade, respectively. The significantly advanced SOS and increased LOS were mainly seen in the Western Tianshan Mountains and Ili Valley regions with elevations from 2500 to 3500 m a.s.l and below 3000 m a.s.l, respectively. During the early spring, the significant decline in snow cover fraction (SCF) could advance the SOS. In contrast, snowmelt amount and annual maximum snow water equivalent (SWE) have an almost equally substantial positive correlation with annual maximum vegetation greenness. In particular, the SOS of grassland was the most sensitive to variations of snow cover fraction during early spring than that of other vegetation types, and their strong relationship was mainly located at elevations from 1500 to 2500 m a.s.l. Its greenness was significantly controlled by the annual maximum snow water equivalent in all elevation bands. Both decreased SCF and increased temperature in the early spring caused a significant advance of the SOS, consequently prolonging the LOS. Meanwhile, more SWE and snowmelt amount could significantly promote vegetation greenness by regulating the soil moisture. The results can improve the understanding of the snow ecosystem services in the alpine regions under climate change.

On the Use of Gridded Data Products for Trend Assessment and Aridity Classification in a Mediterranean Context: The Case of the Apulia Region

Large-scale gridded climatic data can be useful for the assessment of climate variability and change as a basis for understanding and monitoring natural hazards, as well as for determining appropriate coping strategies. However, an evaluation of the accuracy of these data products against local observational measurements over the different regions of the globe is always required, as these large-scale data may be affected by systematic errors, which can affect the results of downstream applications. Therefore, this study was carried out to evaluate the performances of two long-term gridded datasets in reproducing station-based precipitation and temperature data over the Apulia region (southern Italy) for the period 1956–2019, with a particular focus on the effect of using the different data sources on the results of trend analyses and aridity classification. The results revealed that the considered gridded data products allow only general indications on the spatial and temporal behavior of climatic variables over the Apulia region, especially in regard to precipitation data.

Droughts in Serbia through the analyses of De Martonne and Ped indices

Due to global warming, droughts have become one of the focal points of researchers in the field of climate and water, all over the world. The analyses in this paper include spatial pattern and temporal trend for the territory of Serbia, over the 1949-2016 period. The De Martonne aridity index and the Ped drought index have been applied. Eighteen pairs of temperature and precipitation stations all over the country have been analyzed. The obtained results show a tendency toward a drier condition, which are not yet drastic. Drought areas for the territory of Serbia are increasing, but drought intensity and frequency should certainly be lower than those predicted for the Mediterranean coastal area, except in regions with very high human water use. Comparing the obtained results from stations at the original altitude and calculated data for the same stations at fixed virtual altitudes has shown that the natural direction of drought, which decreases from west to southeast, has shifted to a north to south direction.

Climate Change Projections of Aridity Conditions in the Iberian Peninsula

The assessment of aridity conditions is a key factor for water management and the implementation of mitigation and adaptation policies in agroforestry systems. Towards this aim, three aridity indices were computed for the Iberian Peninsula (IP): the De Martonne Index (DMI), the Pinna Combinative Index (PCI), and the Erinç Aridity Index (EAI). These three indices were first computed for the baseline period 1961–1990, using gridded observational data (E-OBS), and subsequently, for the periods 2011–2040 (short range) and 2041–2070 (medium range), using an ensemble of six regional climate model (RCM) experiments generated by the EURO-CORDEX project. Two representative concentration pathways (RCPs) were analyzed, an intermediate anthropogenic radiative forcing scenario (RCP4.5) and a fossil-intensive emission scenario (RCP8.5). Overall, the three indices disclose a strengthening of aridity and dry conditions in central and southern Iberia until 2070, mainly under RCP8.5. Strong (weak) statistically significant correlations were found between these indices and the total mean precipitation (mean temperature) along with projected significant decreasing (increasing) trends for precipitation (temperature). The prevalence of years with arid conditions (above 70% for 2041–2070 under both RCPs) are projected to have major impacts in some regions, such as southern Portugal, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Comunidad de Madrid, Andalucía, Región de Murcia, Comunidad Valenciana, and certain regions within the Aragón province. The projected increase in both the intensity and persistence of aridity conditions in a broader southern half of Iberia will exacerbate the exposure and vulnerability of this region to climate change, while the risk of multi-level desertification should be thoroughly integrated into regional and national water management and planning.

Assessment of Drought Impact on Net Primary Productivity in the Terrestrial Ecosystems of Mongolia from 2003 to 2018

Drought has devastating impacts on agriculture and other ecosystems, and its occurrence is expected to increase in the future. However, its spatiotemporal impacts on net primary productivity (NPP) in Mongolia have remained uncertain. Hence, this paper focuses on the impact of drought on NPP in Mongolia. The drought events in Mongolia during 2003–2018 were identified using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator (BEPS)-derived NPP was computed to assess changes in NPP during the 16 years, and the impacts of drought on the NPP of Mongolian terrestrial ecosystems was quantitatively analyzed. The results showed a slightly increasing trend of the growing season NPP during 2003–2018. However, a decreasing trend of NPP was observed during the six major drought events. A total of 60.55–87.75% of land in the entire country experienced drought, leading to a 75% drop in NPP. More specifically, NPP decline was prominent in severe drought areas than in mild and moderate drought areas. Moreover, this study revealed that drought had mostly affected the sparse vegetation NPP. In contrast, forest and shrubland were the least affected vegetation types.

Aridity in the Central and Southern Pannonian Basin

For the investigation of geographical, monthly, seasonal, and annual distributions of aridity and its annual trend in the region of the Central and Southern Pannonian Basin (CSPB), which includes the territories of Hungary and Vojvodina (Northern Serbia), the De Martonne Aridity Index (DMAI) was used. The DMAI was originally calculated from a total of 78 meteorological stations with the maximum available time series of climatological data in three cases: 1931–2017 for Hungary; 1949–2017 for Vojvodina; and 1949–2017 for Hungary and Vojvodina jointly. The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) was used to control the DMAI results. Temperature and precipitation trends were also investigated to understand their effects on the aridity trend. Three aridity types are distinguished on the annual level, five on the seasonal level, and four on the monthly level. The annual aridity had no trends in all three periods. It seems that aridity can be considered a more stable climate indicator of climate change than the temperature, at least in the CSPB.