Future Bioclimatic Change of Agricultural and Natural Areas in Central Europe: An Ultra-High Resolution Analysis of the De Martonne Index

Abstract

Bioclimate alteration unquestionably poses a current but also a potential future threat to natural and agricultural ecosystems and their services. In this scope, the present and future bioclimatic footprint of the Central European territory is investigated and presented. For the first time, an ultrahigh spatial resolution (<250 m) of the de Martonne index is analyzed over the entire area, as well as for individual countries (Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia). The research is performed for the reference period (1981–2010) and for three time series (2011–2040; 2041–2070; 2071–2100) under two emissions scenarios (SSP370 and SSP585) for the determination of the potential short-term and distant future bioclimatic change trends. Projection results reveal higher xerothermic trends over the lowland agricultural areas mostly in 2071–2100 and under the extreme SSP585, with the classes’ spatial distributions going from 0.0% to 2.3% for the semi-dry class and from 0.0% to 30.1% for the presiding Mediterranean class. Additionally, more than half of the territory’s agricultural surface area (53.4%) is foreseen to be depending on supplementary irrigation by 2100. Overall, more intense dry thermal conditions are expected to impact the agricultural areas of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary with the latter emerging as particularly vulnerable.