Soil moisture update by VanderSat – Europe July 2021

July 7, 2021

drought europe soil moisture update

oil Moisture levels in Spain, Greece and Turkey are recovering. New drought hazard in the Balkans and Eastern Europe

In our last report we indicated drought hazards for Spain, Greece and Turkey. New rain events in these three countries have improved the situation during the month of June.

A new drought hazard has emerged in Eastern Europe, especially for Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Hungary and the East of Romania.
Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia are also relatively dry, here however 20 to 30 millimetres of rain is expected in the next 10 days (source).
Rain deficits in central Italy had limited negative impacts on the winter crops in advanced stages of development (source).

Measured soil moisture excess/deficits map

status 30 June 2021
VanderSat soil moisture satellite data 20 day average, deviation from climatology top 10 centimeters

Rest of Europe: the topsoil is normal or wetter than normal

In the rest of Europe the soil moisture situation of the topsoil remains normal or even wetter than normal. In the next 10 days new rainfall events are expected in the Alps and Germany with over 40mm expected.1 In large parts of Europe the warmer temperatures, combined with adequate moisture supply, accelerated biomass accumulation and phenological development of winter crops and spring cereals, thus improving the yield outlook. So far, summer crops benefited much less from these improvements.2

Soil moisture defined

How much water is in your soil. Soil moisture is a more direct measure of how much water is available for plants and therefore a critical predictor for yield. Rainfall only provides the input of water availability. It does not account for evaporation, water runoff, and the additional water stored in the ground. VanderSat measures soil moisture levels at a unique high resolution of 100 meter by 100 meter globally. Farmers, cooperatives and agricultural firms are using our data on a daily basis to measure, manage and insure their crop growth in every stage of their development.