Dataset of heatwaves affecting European beech forests

This dataset provides a spatially explicit list of heatwaves that impacted European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forests for the period 2003-2023. It includes 29,251 events identified at specific beech forest locations (9,181) across Europe, based on the EU-Forest dataset (Mauri et al., 2017). In this dataset, for Europe, the heatwave is considered as a period of at least three consecutive days during which the daily maximum temperature exceeds the corresponding calendar-day 90th percentile, based on a 30-year climatological reference period (Perkins and Alexander, 2013). Heatwaves were detected using the HeatwaveR R package (Schlegel and Smit, 2018), applied to daily temperature data from ERA5-Land with a shifting climatology approach. Only heatwaves that were found to affect beech forest phenology were included in the dataset. Impact on beech phenology were identified using the npphen R package (Estay and Chàvez, 2018) for anomaly detection, applied to MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) time series (250 m pixel size, 8-day temporal resoution).This dataset is intended to support research on climate extremes and forest ecosystem responses. 

The dataset is structured as follows:

site_id: Unique identifier for each beech forest location

lat, lon: Geographic coordinates

date_start, date_end: Time limits of the heatwave event

date_peak: Date corresponding to the maximum intensity among heatwave days

duration: Number of heatwave days

intensity_max: Maximum intensity recorded during heatwave days measured as the difference between the observed maximum temperature and the climatology [°C]

category: Severity classification of heatwave intensity based on Hobday et al. (2016)