From March 1, 2023, the Department of Geography, together with seven other institutions from six Central European countries (Austria, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia), became part of the project Clim4Cast - Central European Toolbox for Mitigating Combined Consequences of Drought, Heatwaves, and Fire Weather through Regionally Tuned Forecasting. The project is implemented under the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE 2021–2027 programme. The project coordinator is the Global Change Research Institute, CAS.
According to current models, the frequency, duration and severity of extreme meteorological phenomena (drought, heatwaves, fire weather events) in the Central European region are expected to increase as a result of ongoing climate change. A lack of existing tools to monitor, predict, and spread awareness of these extremes resulted in general unpreparedness to these events on regional, national, and cross-border levels. The project will address this issue by developing a Central European multi-temporal forecasting toolbox that will be integrated into existing national drought monitoring efforts.
The Department of Geography will be involved in particular in the study of historical meteorological extremes, the creation of a methodology for their evaluation, and the optimization of visual communication of prediction results with variant groups of end-users.
The project's co-investigator on behalf of the Department of Geography is Mgr. Lukáš Dolák, Ph.D. (dolak@sci.muni.cz).
More information about the project and a list of partner institutions can be found here.
On October 15, 2024, Daniel Nývlt, head of the Czech Antarctic Research Programme based at the Department of Geography of SCI MUNI, received a state honour from the Republic of Chile for his role in the long-standing excellent cooperation between the Czechia and Chile in Antarctic research.
Interview with Jan Písek, a graduate of the Department of Geography, Masaryk University, in the NATURE journal.
