Towards an operational European Drought Impacts Database (EDID)

Abstract. Drought impact information is essential to move from reactive management to a proactive approach. Data on drought impacts provide regional insight into vulnerability and support robust risk assessment and sustainable adaptation strategies. Drought impact data are also essential to build and validate models for advanced impact forecasting, including AI enhanced tools. While there is increasing consensus on the operational use of specific physical drought hazard indices, to date there is no generally accepted convention on drought impact data collection and use. Based on experience and content of several regional research databases, the development of a European Drought Impact Database (EDID) explicitly aims for operational application within the framework of the Copernicus European Drought Observatory. This article gives insight into the implementation of EDID, its structure and attributes, and provides an analysis of the content. Among the nine impacted systems, agriculture, public water supply and aquatic ecosystems contribute a majority of the impact records. Over the covered time period, impacts became more variable in the system they describe and recent years show some more extremely severe impacts according to a newly introduced severity score. Mapped at country scale, the impacts confirm previously identified European sectorial impact hotspots. The work and product show that regional datasets can be integrated and add valuable information to an international European database. Public accessibility now provides the opportunity for update and improvement by mobilizing the European drought community.