GDO Meteorological Drought Tracking (version 2.0.0)

The Meteorological Drought Tracking indicator outlines drought areas as discrete events in space and time. The indicator is available at the global scale and at near real-time, updated every ten days (dekad). By providing information on the spatial-temporal delineation of drought events, it allows for a structured and well-defined analysis of individual droughts by means of duration and spatial extent of events, e.g. to follow evolution over space and time, etc. Derived from the ERA5 (fifth generation) reanalysis, drought events are identified with a three-dimensional density-based clustering algorithm (DBSCAN) computed on SPI-3 data. Events are classified as 'consolidated' if they reached a final status where they cannot evolve any longer, or 'on-going' when the spatio-temporal outline is likely to change with further updates over space and/or time. An extra-status called 'potential' (available only in the Expert Map of EDO and GDO) depicts all the areas that can theoretically be defined as part of a meteorological drought event, provided their spatial-temporal dynamics meet the criteria for doing so. The technical details describing the methods for the computation of the indicator can be found in the technical factsheet and in Cammalleri, et al. (2023) An event-oriented database of meteorological droughts in Europe based on spatio-temporal clustering. Sci Rep 13, 3145. WARNING: The data provided for on-going drought events represents the current monitoring status as of the latest update (every 10 days). Please be aware that these events are evolving and will likely be modified in subsequent updates as new data becomes available. They should not be considered final or complete. Finalized drought events are available in the consolidated events dataset.