Agricultural drought assessment on the base of Hydro-thermal Coefficient of Selyaninov in Poland

Climate change on the globe has been manifested over the past few decades by, among other things, an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, such as droughts. Drought affects millions of people around the world every year. Its effects usually appear after a long period of rainfall deficit. Based on climate projections, it is emphasized that water scarcity will be one of the most important problems in the future. Due to the importance of the increasing problem of drought, the analysis of this phenomenon in Poland was undertaken in the context of agriculture. The aim of this study was to assess the course of drought in the vegetation period during years 2001-2020 for Poland based on the Selyaninov’s coefficient (HTC). As shown in this study, the western and central parts of the country, dominated by arable land, are particularly vulnerable to drought. Due to the cyclic nature of periods classified by HTC as dry, it can be concluded that the problem of precipitation deficit for crops in Poland could get worse.