End of the farmland? A few more decades and a significant part of Hungary could become a forested steppe

Environmental conditions similar to Mongolia await us if we do not take steps against climate change. (Photo: Pixabay)

In their study, due to increasingly stronger climate change, the spread of dry areas is likely, primarily in the northern and central parts of the Great Plain, the Little Plain and the northeastern part of Transdanubia. The process has been going on for decades, compared to the 1970s and 1980s, the proportion of wet areas has already decreased from 84 percent to 68 percent, comparing the June data, they wrote.

In the worst case, the larger forests and a good part of the agricultural land will almost disappear

The forecast outlines several possibilities. Based on the worst case scenario, by the end of the century, the Great Plain may be a completely dry area, and only the western part of the country will remain wetter. It is conceivable that Hungary may be predominantly, even more than 85 percent, dominated by forested steppe by the second half of the century, with the beech forests disappearing completely, and the oak forests also shrinking to a very small area.

If we can improve the current situation, a lesser evil awaits us

The less serious possibility is that the drying is limited to a smaller area, a significant part of the North Central Mountains and Transdanubia will remain a wet area. This also shows that it does not matter what happens until then, since the extent of the changes in the coming decades depends on the current measures – they added. The study on the domestic effects of climate change is published on the masfelfok.hu website.

MTI