What we do
We provide drought forecasting and monitoring maps, analysis tools and periodical reports.
Map, tools and reports are based on computation, forecasting and monitoring of key drought indicators, derived from satellite observations, hydro-meteorological models and in-situ data.
Our activities
Explore the drought situation in Europe and parameters such as rainfall, temperature, heatwaves, soil moisture, vegetation health, lowflow and groundwater availability.
Visualise the drought situation on the planet and for rainfall, soilmoisture, temperature, heatwaves, groundwater availability, soil moisture and vegetation response.
When severe droughts occur we publish ad-hoc reports detailing the situation, the forecasts and the impacts.
Our latest news on droughts
Low rainfall, dry soils, and shrinking rivers are pressuring ecosystems, farming, and transport routes across Europe and neighbouring regions.
A severe and prolonged drought continues to grip much of Africa, with far-reaching consequences for the environment, economies, and societies across the continent.
Climate change and unsustainable water and land management increase drought risk globally. The World Drought Atlas shows the current conditions and the emerging risks. It also offers concrete elements to boost actions to achieve drought resilience.
Drought early-warning and monitoring
Drought monitoring
Due to the different types of drought and its intrinsic complexity, drought monitoring needs to rely on a set of different indicators, representing several components of the hydrological cycle (precipitation, soil moisture, reservoir levels, river flow, groundwater levels) or specific impacts (vegetation water stress).
These indicators represent statistical anomalies of the current situation with respect to the long-term climatology at a given location and period of time. To ease the interpretation and to provide information for decision-making, individual indicators can be logically combined into high-level indicators that highlight different warning levels with respect to a given economic sector or the natural system. An example is the Combined Drought Indicator (CDI), for agricultural and ecosystem drought, as shown in the Copernicus European and Global Drought Observatories.
Drought indicators
The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) are the most well-known and used indicators to assess meteorological drought. They show the severity of anomalous dry events for different precipitation accumulation periods - from 1 to 48 months - and are commonly used to illustrate impacts across on agriculture, the economy, ecosystems or energy production, among others.
Snowpack extent and snow water equivalent (SWE) are other important variables in Northern Europe and in mountainous regions. Snow contributes to water availability over the year also over far away wide regions that draw water from snow reservoirs.
Other drought indicators focus on soil water content. The Drought Observatories Soil Moisture Index Anomaly (SMA), the Drought Severity Index (DSI), or the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) are indicators used to characterise the risk of plant water stress.
On the other hand, the European Drought Observatories Low-Flow Index (LFI) is an indicator for hydrological drought. It is usually based on threshold approaches to quantify the volume of water deficit in rivers and reservoirs.
Combined indicators blend several physical indicators into one high-level indicator of hazard, like the Combined Drought Indicator.