Regional differentiation in climate change induced drought trends in the Netherlands

Abstract The summer of 2018 was characterized by high temperatures and low precipitation values in the Netherlands. The drought negatively impacted different sectors, resulting in an estimated damage of 450 to 2080 million Euros. Strong regional differences were observed in the precipitation shortfall across the country, with highest deficits in the southern and eastern regions. This raised two questions: (i) have increasing global temperatures contributed to changes in meteorological and agricultural droughts as severe or worse as in 2018? And (ii) are trends in these types of droughts differ... Mehr ...