Former Hungarian president János Áder warned that drought years will become increasingly frequent in the Carpathian Basin and that the agricultural sector must adapt to the changing climate in the latest episode of his Blue Planet podcast, released on Monday.
Áder, who serves as chairman of the board of trustees of the Blue Planet Climate Protection Foundation, spoke with climate expert Mónika Lakatos about the growing impact of climate change on the region.
During the discussion, the participants recalled a report by the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitoring service, which found that Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average. Experts had already warned two decades ago that the effects of climate change would be felt earlier and more severely in the Carpathian Basin than in other parts of Europe.
Lakatos explained that one of the main reasons is the basin-like geographical structure of the region, which is almost entirely surrounded by mountain ranges and amplifies certain climatic extremes.
She said some weather systems become trapped in the basin, including blocking anticyclones that create prolonged periods of clear weather and intensify drought conditions. Slow-moving cyclones can also remain stuck over the region, causing heavy rainfall in localized areas and even flash floods.
According to the climate expert, another major vulnerability is the region’s water balance. Rivers in the Carpathian Basin depend heavily on precipitation and snowmelt from surrounding mountain ranges, while heatwaves rapidly warm agricultural soils, accelerating drying and reducing the cooling effect of evaporation.
Lakatos noted that the 2022 drought was historically severe both in Hungary and across Europe. Although 2023 was wetter than average, 2024 became the hottest year ever recorded in Hungary, with only 65 per cent of the long-term average rainfall recorded. She added that 2025 has also been significantly drier than usual.
She said the current drought situation was worsened by an exceptionally dry and mild December last year, which prevented deeper soil layers from being replenished with moisture.
Snowfall in January was absorbed only into the upper soil layers, while deeper layers remained depleted. March also saw below-average rainfall, with meaningful precipitation arriving only in the final week of the month. Although that benefited winter crops, it was followed by an extremely dry April. In some parts of Hungary, no rainfall has been recorded since early March.
Lakatos referred to data from HungaroMet dating back to 1901, which show that spring is the only season in Hungary where precipitation has declined significantly. Since 1981, autumn rainfall totals have remained relatively stable, but precipitation has fallen on fewer days, while temperatures have consistently remained above average.
‘As temperatures rise, rainfall becomes more intense, and drought risk increases,’ she said.
Áder remarked that the situation in May 2026 already appears more alarming than in September 2022, with soil drying progressing earlier than during previous drought years. Lakatos warned that the upper soil layer is now critically dry, while lower layers are missing roughly two months’ worth of rainfall.
Asked how agriculture can adapt to increasingly frequent droughts, Lakatos said farmers should reconsider whether water-intensive crops such as corn remain economically viable under current conditions. She encouraged producers to transition toward drought-resistant and heat-tolerant crops, noting that many farmers have already begun replacing corn with sorghum. Other adaptation measures include retaining water in the landscape through the controlled flooding of oxbow lakes and improved canal management. Lakatos said there are already positive examples of such practices in the Homokhátság region between the Danube and Tisza rivers.
She also highlighted the importance of water-retaining soil cultivation methods and water-efficient irrigation systems. According to one analysis cited in the podcast, every millimetre of rainfall in May could prevent yield losses of around 60 kilograms per hectare.
Áder concluded that farmers should prepare for increasingly difficult years ahead and that the agricultural sector as a whole will need a comprehensive adaptation strategy.
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