European Drought Risk Atlas

In recent years, droughts have had substantial impacts on nearly all regions of the EU, a?ecting several critical systems such as agriculture, water supply, energy, river transportation, and ecosystems. These impacts are projected to further increase due to climate change. While some of the drivers of drought risk are well known for some systems and regions, drought risks and impacts remain hard to assess and quantify.

The European Drought Risk Atlas is a considerable step towards impact-based drought assessment and can support the development and implementation of drought management and adaptation policies and actions. It characterises how drought hazard, exposure and vulnerability interact and a?ect di?erent but interconnected systems: agriculture, public water supply, energy, river transportation, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems.

The atlas presents both a conceptual and quantitative approach to drought risk 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, based on machine learning techniques, maps drought risk at national and sub-national level in terms of annual average loss and probable maximum losses at specific return periods, both for current climate conditions, and for projections under di?erent levels of global warming (+1.5 °C, +2 °C, +3 °C).