Assessing Available Water Content of Sandy Soils to Support Drought Monitoring and Agricultural Water Management

In the future, according to regional climate-model simulations, the Carpathian Basin (in Central Europe) is predicted to be exposed to intensifying weather extremes that will exert a growing pressure on water resources. In recent past decades, water already has become a significant limiting factor for the natural environment and many agro-economic sectors in the southern Carpathian Basin. Therefore, there are increasing attempts to develop monitoring systems to detect water stress. In this study, changes in soil moisture conditions were monitored within two Arenosol profiles of extreme water balance during years characterised by different hydrologic conditions and under the impact of irrigation in the Great Hungarian Plain. Hourly data series of hydrometeorological parameters and soil moisture from six different soil depths during 2014–2018 were provided by on-site monitoring stations; humus, carbonate content, porosity, field capacity and wilting point were measured in the laboratory. On the basis of the newly definied so-called ‘available water percent’ (AW%) and a developed classification method, the rate, time and duration of water-shortage periods were evaluated for the years 2014–2018. The results show that drought monitoring cannot be effective without investigation of soil moisture content. Detailed analysis of available water percentage (AW%) can be used for real-time drought monitoring and as a precise indicator of the evolution of drought. This can help us prevent and manage damage from drought, and it is extremely important for agriculture.