Droughts have substantial impacts on nearly all regions and many critical sectors in the EU and climate change will exacerbate these drought risks, prompting several EU Member States to implement or further develop drought management and drought adaptation plans and measures.

To support this, the European Drought Impact Database (EDID) establishes operational conventions and procedures for the collection and categorisation of drought impact data. The European Drought Risk Atlas offers for the first time a detailed and regionally disaggregated view of drought risk in different but interconnected systems by means of impact chains and quantitative risk analyses for different impacted systems.

There remains a need to build a community of practice on drought impact and risks. The network of Drought Observatories in the EU provides technical and scientific support to further drought impact data collection and analysis, and develop tailored sectoral and a regionally disaggregated drought risk assessments. These initiatives represent an urgently needed first step in the transition from a mostly hazard-based assessment of drought risks, to a more impact-based assessment, as the EU develops plans and implements measures to become more resilient and adapt to the risk posed by droughts and water scarcity, both in the current climate and in the future climate.

Maetens, W., Masante, D., Barbosa, P., Rossi, L., Wens, M., De Moel, H., Van Loon, A., Cotti, D., Sabino Siemons, A., Hagenlocher, M., Bláhová, M., Blauhut, V., Szillat, K., Stahl, K. and Toreti, A., The European Drought Observatory for Resilience and Adaptation (EDORA), European Commission, Ispra, 2024, JRC136695