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.

The origin of somatic cell lineages during testicular development is controversial in mammals. Employing basal amphibian tetrapod Xenopus tropicalis we established a cell culture derived from testes of juvenile male. Expression analysis showed transcription of some pluripotency genes and Sertoli cell, peritubular myoid cell and mesenchymal cell markers. Transcription of germline-specific genes was downregulated. Immunocytochemistry revealed that a majority of cells express vimentin and co-express Sox9 and smooth muscle α-actin (Sma), indicating the existence of a common progenitor of Sertoli and peritubular myoid cell lineages. Microinjection of transgenic, red fluorescent protein (RFP)-positive somatic testicular cells into the peritoneal cavity of X. tropicalis tadpoles resulted in cell deposits in heart, pronephros and intestine, and later in a strong proliferation and formation of cell-to-cell net growing through the tadpole body. Immunohistochemistry analysis of transplanted tadpoles showed a strong expression of vimentin in RFP-positive cells. No co-localization of Sox9 and Sma signals was observed during the first three weeks indicating their dedifferentiation to migratory-active mesenchymal cells recently described in human testicular biopsies.

Drought directly and indirectly affects human society in a number of ways. In many regions of the world climate change will exasperate the effects of droughts, affect national economies more intensely. The main aim of this article was to catalogue and analyze the drought impacts in the 11 Central and South Eastern European states located in the Danube river basin. The identification of dry episodes was based on information from publicly available sources, namely, newspaper and journal articles that reported drought impacts. Information on drought impact occurrences was classified into one of five defined categories in which the drought impact report was most clearly manifested (i.e., agriculture, forestry, soil systems, wildfires and hydrology). In terms of the spatial distribution of drought impacts, individual recorded events were analyzed at the level of EU NUTS regions (or their equivalent in non‑EU countries). The analysis highlights country‑specific vulnerability to drought. Furthermore, gradual increases in drought events and the number of reported impacts were identified, which was particularly evident in the agricultural sector.

No abstract