Please find the paper "A new global database of meteorological drought events from 1951 to 2016" on Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214581818303136
The drought events database is freely accessible to everyone on the Global Drought Observatory's website.
The database contains more than 4500 drought events, at global scale, from 1951 to 2016. They have been classified using a few indicators as the SPI and the SPEI at different temporal scales. On spatial scale, the database has specific entries for macro-regions and for approximately 175 countries. Moreover, using a special classification scoring system, we identified the biggest 52 mega-droughts occurred in 1951–2016. the list is available on GDO, together with interactive maps and time series. Between the most relevant findings, we mention that in the last decades, Amazonia, southern South America, Mediterranean region, most of Africa, north-eastern China stand out as drought hotspots. Moreover, over North America, central Europe, central Asia, and Australia, the progressive temperature increase outbalanced the increase in precipitation causing more frequent and severe droughts. The database will be updated approximately every two years and can be used as reference for scientific studies and for policy reports as well.
A new study, based on the gathering more than 100 simulations from the CORDEX experiment and focusing on global drought projections from 1981 to 2100 under two climate scenarios is currently under review.
You tube tutorial to use the system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y08djGHi9w8
By default, this web-page opens with a map showing drought events during the most recent month of data availability.
The user can change month by using the slider (top-right) or the two buttons (below the slider), which scroll by one month per click.
Drought-affected areas, detected by a selected drought indicator, are displayed on the map, using country shape-files or pre-defined rectangular macro-regions, coloured according to the score assigned to each drought event.
The user also has the option to display the selected drought indicator in its original sampling resolution of 1 decimal degree (DD).
By hovering over locations the map, the user can view relevant details of the area under the cursor. Selection of one of these locations opens a section below the map, containing detailed information, displayed as interactive tables, diagrams and charts.
At the top of this section, a tab labelled “Top Events” opens a list of reported and documented drought events. By clicking on each line, user is re-directed to the map which displays the active events at the time of the clicked event.