Drought stress in Baden-Württemberg: Plants suffer from a lack of water!

Drought stress in Baden-Württemberg: Plants suffer from a lack of water!

In the last few days, the rain in Baden-Württemberg has done little to ease the acute drought problem. The plants are still severely affected and suffer from drought stress. According to a report by the Borken newspaper The water shortage is particularly dramatic in the north, in the Stuttgart area and in the Swabian Alb. Here the development of vegetation is severely restricted. In other regions, such as the Black Forest and Upper Swabia, the soil is moist and even saturated with water.

The soil moisture is calculated to a depth of one meter. Values ​​below 50 percent already indicate the beginning of drought stress, and below 30 percent it becomes critical. The soil is classified as wet from 80 percent, from 90 percent it is considered water-saturated, and above 110 percent it is even referred to as supersaturation. Recent maps from the Baden-Württemberg State Office for the Environment show that areas with higher soil moisture have grown following the rains, but forecasts indicate that these will have shrunk again by the end of the week.

Look at the weather situation

The German Weather Service (DWD) expects hardly any significant rain in the coming days; Local showers are possible, but it will remain largely dry. Temperatures could rise up to 27 degrees and it will be cooler in places at night. These weather conditions further contribute to the tense drought situation, which worries farmers and nature lovers alike.

The increasing demand for precise data on soil moisture has prompted the DWD to expand its offering. A total of data from around 300 weather stations in Germany are now available to record soil moisture down to a depth of 60 cm under grass. Users can now view information on drought, climatic water balance and precipitation totals. Data on the soil moisture situation is available for the current year, the previous year as well as for mean and extreme values ​​for the reference period 1991 to 2020. This allows a detailed analysis of the current agro-meteorological conditions and forecasts for the coming days. Further information can be found in the article Weather insurance.

In addition to all this data, experts assess the development of drought monitoring programs. The Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research has provided a variety of graphics and maps comparing current conditions and historical drought periods. This information can be used for scientific and editorial purposes and, thanks to the extensive data, also offers users a level of comparison for drought intensities. This also includes the drought monitor, which can provide extensive insights into the availability of water to plants. Those interested can find out more about this on the homepage UFZ.

The current situation shows how high the pressure is on vegetation in some regions, while other areas benefit from a certain excess of water. It remains to be hoped that further rainfall will not only occur regionally, but across the country in order to alleviate the drought in the particularly affected parts of the country.