EDORA - European Drought Observatory for Resilience and Adaptation

EDORANEWS - Newsletter #3 - November 2023

As the European Drought Observatory for Resilience and Adaptation project is ending, the results of the project were presented to the EU Member States, The European Parliament and the public.


European Drought Impact Database

Motivated by the lack of standards on drought impact data collection, the European Drought Impact Database (EDID) provides Member States and other stakeholders with a structured template for systematically recording drought impact data. This template offers the necessary flexibility in the data model to address specific requirements while retaining a core set of standardized features, enabling the description and comparison of drought impacts in a more consistent manner. The current version (1.0) contains about 14,000 records. To know more, contact us.

The European Drought Impact Database (EDID). Sources and distribution of records per sectors and systems.
Figure 1. The European Drought Impact Database (EDID). Sources and distribution of records per sectors and systems.

European Drought Risk Atlas

The European Drought Risk Atlas characterises how drought hazard, exposure and vulnerability interact and affect different but interconnected systems: agriculture, public water supply, energy, riverine transportation, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems and aims to support the development and implementation of drought management and adaptation policies and actions across the EU. The Atlas presents both a conceptual and quantitative approach to drought risk assessment for these systems. The conceptual drought risk models (impact chains) are the result of a review of the literature in Europe and consultations with experts to construct visualisations of the most relevant drivers and how they interact to determine risk and impacts. The quantitative estimate of drought risk is based on machine learning techniques and maps drought risk at the sub-national level in terms of annual average loss and probable maximum losses at specific return periods, both for present climate conditions and for projections under different levels of global warming (+1.5 °C, +2 °C, +3 °C).

The European Drought Risk Atlas. Impact chain (right) and average annual net primary production
                      loss (left) for terrestrial ecosystems in warming level +2°C and +3°C compared to present conditions.
Figure 2. The European Drought Risk Atlas. Impact chain (right) and average annual net primary production loss (left) for terrestrial ecosystems in warming level +2°C and +3°C compared to present conditions.

Both the Drought Risk Atlas and the Drought Impact Database have been developed by the JRC and the EDORA consortium1 to support the development and implementation of drought management and adaptation policies and actions across the EU. They will be further integrated into the Disaster Risk Management activities of JRC.

EDORA at the European Parliament

The EDORA partners at the EU Parliament together with MEP Pernille WEISS who chaired the event.
Figure 3. The EDORA partners at the EU Parliament together with MEP Pernille WEISS who chaired the event.

On September 26th and 27th, the main EDORA results were presented to representatives of the EU Member States at the 4th meeting of the Common Implementation Strategy for the Water Framework Directive Ad-hoc Task Group on Water Scarcity and Droughts in Madrid. A month later, on October 27th, the EDORA consortium presented the results of the project at the European Parliament in Brussels, during the event "Droughts in Europe today and tomorrow", presided by MEP Pernille WEISS, Chair of the MEP Water Group European Drought Impact Database (EDID), the European Drought Risk Atlas, and the stock-taking on drought management policies and climate adaptation actions were presented as main results of the EDORA project.

Presentation of the European Drought Risk Atlas at the EU Parliament.
Figure 4. Presentation of the European Drought Risk Atlas at the EU Parliament.

After an opening statement by MEP Weiss, Director Veronica MANFREDI (DG ENV C) introduced the European policies to mitigate drought risks, followed by Tom DE GROEVE, JRC Head of the Disaster Risk Management Unit (JRC E.1), who stressed the importance of scientific data and knowledge to support drought resilience and adaptation. Andrea TORETI (JRC) and Kerstin STAHL (University of Freiburg) presented the European Drought Risk Atlas and Impacts Database.

The interventions of Tony ZAMPARUTTI (Milieu Consulting) gave an overview of European and National drought management policies. He outlined the drought policies implemented by Member States, showing a relatively dispersed scenario in terms of responsibility across different agencies and institutions.

Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius highlighted the importance of drought risk management:

“To make Europe water resilient, we first need to better understand drought risks. Forewarned is forearmed, and these new tools do just that. The reasons for water scarcity are, however, often man-made. We all must act to stop illegal abstractions of groundwater, reduce the pollution of rivers and increase water efficiency.”

For more information:

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC135215

JRC news item: https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/drought-risk-atlas-heightened-risk-threatens-environment-and-economy-2023-10-11_en

DG ENV news item: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/news/commission-publishes-new-tools-help-predict-and-adapt-sectoral-drought-impacts-2023-10-11_en


1 EDORA is funded by the European Commission. This newsletter is part of Service Contract No 09200200.A092005/2021/862347/ENV.C.1 – Lot 1 "Development and implementation of a drought impact database, a drought risk assessment methodology and a drought risk atlas" carried out by the EDORA consortium partners: (CIMA Research Foundation, University of Amsterdam - Institute for Environmental Studies, United Nations University - Institute for Environment and Human Security, University of Freiburg, CzechGlobe)

The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and should not be considered as representative of the European Commission’s official position.