Impact of Agricultural Drought on Sunflower Production across Hungary
Endre Harsányi,
Bashar Bashir,
Firas Alsilibe,
Karam Alsafadi,
Abdullah Alsalman,
Adrienn Széles,
Muhammad Habib ur Rahman,
István Bácskai,
Csaba Juhász,
Tamás Ratonyi,
Safwan Mohammed
Affiliations
Endre Harsányi
Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and Environmental Management, Institute of Land Utilization, Technology and Regional Development, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Bashar Bashir
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
Firas Alsilibe
Department of Transport Infrastructure and Water Resources Engineering, Széchenyi István University, 9026 Győr, Hungary
Karam Alsafadi
School of Geographical Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Abdullah Alsalman
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
Adrienn Széles
Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and Environmental Management, Institute of Land Utilization, Technology and Regional Development, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Muhammad Habib ur Rahman
Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES), University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany
István Bácskai
Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and Environmental Management, Institute of Land Utilization, Technology and Regional Development, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Csaba Juhász
Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and Environmental Management, Institute of Land Utilization, Technology and Regional Development, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Tamás Ratonyi
Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and Environmental Management, Institute of Land Utilization, Technology and Regional Development, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Safwan Mohammed
Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and Environmental Management, Institute of Land Utilization, Technology and Regional Development, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary
In the last few decades, agricultural drought (Ag.D) has seriously affected crop production and food security worldwide. In Hungary, little research has been carried out to assess the impacts of climate change, particularly regarding droughts and crop production, and especially on regional scales. Thus, the main aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of agricultural drought on sunflower production across Hungary. Drought data for the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) were collected from the CARBATCLIM database (1961–2010), whereas sunflower production was collected from the Hungarian national statistical center (KSH) on regional and national scales. To address the impact of Ag.D on sunflower production, the sequence of standardized yield residuals (SSYR) and yield losses YlossAD was applied. Additionally, sunflower resilience to Ag.D (SRAg.D) was assessed on a regional scale. The results showed that Ag.D is more severe in the western regions of Hungary, with a significantly positive trend. Interestingly, drought events were more frequent between 1990 and 2010. Moreover, the lowest SSYR values were reported as −3.20 in the Hajdu-Bihar region (2010). In this sense, during the sunflower growing cycle, the relationship between SSYR and Ag.D revealed that the highest correlations were recorded in the central and western regions of Hungary. However, 75% of the regions showed that the plantation of sunflower is not resilient to drought where SRAg.Dx < 1. To cope with climate change in Hungary, an urgent mitigation plan should be implemented.
