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.
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).
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
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.
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
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