The awareness of drought and its impacts on Central Europe increased after the significant drought episodes in 2000, 2003, 2012 and 2015, which were all estimated to have caused over 500 million Euro in damage in the Czech Republic alone. These events indicated the need for timely and high‐resolution monitoring tools that would enable analysing, monitoring and forecasting of drought events. Monitoring soil water availability in near real time and at high‐resolution (up to 0.5 × 0.5 km for some products) helps farmers and water managers to mitigate impacts of these extreme events. The Czech Drought Monitor was developed between 2012 and 2014 and has since been operational as an online platform. It uses an operational modelling system that consists of four pillars: (a) weekly soil moisture estimates based on spaceborne Advanced Scatterometer sensor measurements; (b) the daily SoilClim soil moisture model, which runs based on high‐density network data from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute with a 55‐year reference period; (c) weekly reports on vegetation condition, which is deduced from satellite‐based vegetation indices and early warnings of imminent drought impacts; and (d) weekly reports of soil moisture, especially after drought impacts, which are provided by dozens of experts. Since 2016 the drought forecast (+9 days) has been released daily based on an ensemble of five numerical weather prediction models combined with a weekly drought outlook (+2 months). The analysis of four recent episodes (2000, 2003, 2012 and 2015) clearly showed that both large‐scale and regionally restrained drought episodes posed serious risks in terms of their impacts and damage. Comparisons with historical droughts showed that these events, especially the 2000, 2003 and 2015 events, were among the top five drought episodes in the June–August period observed in the Czech Republic since 1961 in terms of spatial extent, magnitude and duration.

中文翻译：

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捷克干旱监测系统，用于监测和预测农业干旱及干旱影响

在2000年，2003年，2012年和2015年发生严重干旱之后，人们对干旱及其对中欧的影响的认识有所提高，据估计仅在捷克共和国就造成了5亿多欧元的损失。这些事件表明需要及时，高分辨率的监测工具，以便能够对干旱事件进行分析，监测和预报。接近实时和高分辨率（某些产品可达0.5×0.5 km）的高分辨率土壤水分可用性监测，可帮助农民和水资源管理者减轻这些极端事件的影响。捷克干旱监测仪于2012年至2014年开发，此后一直作为在线平台运行。它使用由四个支柱组成的运营建模系统：（a）根据星载高级散射仪传感器的测量值每周对土壤湿度进行估算；（b）每天的SoilClim土壤湿度模型，该模型基于捷克水文气象研究所的高密度网络数据，具有55年的参考期；（c）每周的植被状况报告，这些报告是从基于卫星的植被指数和即将到来的干旱影响预警中得出的；（d）数十位专家提供的每周土壤水分报告，尤其是干旱影响后的水分报告。自2016年以来，每天都会发布干旱预测（+9天），这是基于五个数值天气预报模型的组合以及每周干旱展望（+2个月）。最近四个事件的分析（2000年，2003年，2012年和2015年）清楚地表明，无论是大规模的还是区域性的干旱事件，其影响和破坏都构成严重风险。与历史干旱的比较表明，就空间范围，强度和持续时间而言，自1961年以来，捷克共和国在6月至8月期间观测到的这些干旱事件，特别是2000年，2003年和2015年的干旱事件，位列前五名。