Towards pan-European drought risk maps: quantifying the link between drought indices and reported drought impacts

Abstract

Drought in Europe is a hazard with a wide range of transboundary, environmental and socio-economic impacts on various sectors including agriculture, energy production, public water supply and water quality. Despite the apparent importance of this natural hazard, observed pan-European drought impacts have not yet been quantitatively related to the most important climatological drivers to map drought risk on a continental scale. This contribution approaches the issue by quantitatively assessing the likelihood of drought impact occurrence as a function of the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index for four European macro regions using logistic regression. The resulting models allow mapping the sector-specific likelihood of drought impact occurrence for specific index levels. For the most severe drought conditions the maps suggest the highest risk of impact occurrence for ‘Water Quality’ in Maritime Europe, followed by ‘Agriculture & Livestock Farming’ in Western Mediterranean Europe and ‘Energy & Industry’ in Maritime Europe. Merely impacts on ‘Public Water Supply’ result in overall lower risk estimates. The work suggests that modeling and mapping for North- and Southeastern Europe requires further enhancement to the impact database in these regions. Such maps may become an essential component of drought risk management to foster resilience for this hazard at large scale.