The Commitment of the European Commission to Drought

Droughts affected many countries over the last decades and caused considerable ecological and economic damage. Climate change studies indicate a trend towards increasing climate variability most likely resulting in more frequent drought occurrences also in Europe.
Against this background, the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) is developing a European Drought Observatory (EDO) as part of the activities of the Water Scarcity and Drought work package. EDO is a tool for assessing, monitoring and forecasting droughts on a continental level in Europe.
As droughts affect the entire water cycle continuous monitoring of a suite of indices is required. Drought indices at European scale are supplemented by indicators at national, regional and local scales, providing more detailed information.

This website provides an overview of the current drought situation in Europe. In addition we develop systems with a focus on South and Central America and Africa. Also a system monitoring drought a global level is being developed. Follow the Outside Europe option in the EDO Home menu to take part in this endeavor.

Access to our Drought Data is available as application in the European Union Open Data Portal, as well as into the JRC Data Portal and in its GeoData Catalogue.