Drought -- National Drought Mitigation Center
Title
Droughts in Poland, 1951-90
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
February 1998
One of the negative features of Poland’s climate
is the periodic occurrence of atmospheric droughts.
The most frequent source of this phenomenon is the
occurrence of long-term (sometimes lasting several
weeks) rainless periods. The occurrence of these periods
is connected with the persistence of a stationary
east European high that joins with the Azores anticyclone
via central Europe. In such situations, with the
accompanying lack or insufficiency of atmospheric
precipitation, a drought begins to develop gradually.
First, a soil drought appears, followed by hydrologic
drought. During a hydrologic drought, a decrease in
the ground water flow into surface waters is observed,
among other phenomena. This results in the reduction
of water flow in rivers. During such periods, a significant
drop in the level of underground waters, as well
as drying of some springs and small water courses, is
observed.
In its initial phase of development, a drought exerts
its first negative effects on crops. Intensification
of this phenomenon also causes disturbances in other
sectors of the national economy. Droughts and their
negative results do not pose the same threat to all areas
of Poland, although in general the influence of
droughts is stronger here than in the majority of central
European countries. This situation is the result of
a combination of natural and historic factors.
One of the areas of interest of the Institute of
Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) is
continuous monitoring and assessment of the course
of meteorological and hydrological phenomena occurring
in all areas of Poland. When preparing an
analysis of the course of successive periods of drought
spells, specialists from the IMGW branch in Poznan
noticed the absence of similar studies of this phenomenon
in Polish literature. In an attempt to fill this gap,
they catalogued all droughts that occurred in Poland from 1951 to 1990. The research methods adopted in
this study, and also the general characteristics of
droughts in Poland, are summarized in this article.
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Published in Drought Network News Vol. 10, No. 1, Oct. 1997–Feb. 1998. Published by the International Drought Information Center and the National Drought Mitigation Center, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska – Lincoln.