International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—The results from a comprehensive drought analysis for the entire Slovakia based on the precipitation records at a large number of climatic stations (491) over a considerable span of time (33 years) are presented. The study included the definition of homogenous regions regarding the temporal pattern of the droughts (by means of Principal Components Analysis, PCA), the analysis of the frequency of the droughts (based on the Kernel occurrence rate estimation method, KORE, coupled with bootstrap confidence bands) and the definition of minimum precipitation surfaces aiming at the recognition of the drought events at the early stages of their occurrence.

Index Terms—Drought, frequency, precipitation thresholds, regionalization, Slovakia.

M. M. Portela and A. T. Silva are with the Civil Engineering Departmant, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal (e-mail: maria.manuela.portela@técnico.ulisboa.pt, artur.tiago.silva@técnico.ulisboa.pt).
M. Zelenáková is with the Technical University of Košice, Košice, Slovakia (e-mail: martina.zelenakova@tuke.sk).
J. F. Santos is with the Instituto Politécnico de Beja, Beja, Portugal (e-mail: joaofisantos@gmail.com).
P. Purcz is with the Technical University of Košice, Košice, Slovakia (e-mail: pavol.purcz@tuke.sk).
H. Hlvatá is with the Slovak Hydrometeorological, Košice, Slovakia (e-mail: helena.hlavata@shmu.sk).

[PDF]

Cite: M. M. Portela, M. Zeleňáková, J. F. Santos, P. Purcz, A. T. Silva, and H. Hlavatá, "Comprehensive Characterization of Droughts in Slovakia," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 25-29, 2017.