Irish Drought Impacts Database v.1.0 (IDID)

The Irish Drought Impacts Database (IDID) presents information from drought related newspaper articles for the island of Ireland, covering the period 1733 – 2019, collected through systematic searching of the Irish Newspaper Archive. These articles were identified, assessed and categorized using a modified version of the classification scheme employed by the European Drought Impact Inventory (EDII) (Stahl et al. 2012). The IDID provides information on the documented temporal and geographical extent of drought events, their socio-economic and political contexts, their consequences and mitigation strategies employed. Temporal information includes the newspaper publication date, timing and duration of drought periods and timing of impacts. Spatial details are provided on three different levels; in addition to Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics Level 2 (Nuts2) regions, county location and, if available, a more localized place name (e.g., town or city name) is also recorded. The database allows the analysis of long-term patterns in drought incidence and impacts as well as offering insights into the impacts of individual drought events over nearly three centuries of Ireland’s history. Spatially specific data provide an opportunity for further exploration of the differential vulnerability of various geographical locations, which may vary depending on biophysical conditions, economic, political and societal context. Textual excerpts offer further insight into the human experience and perception of drought and its impacts. The IDID therefore enables a better understanding of drought, vulnerability, and offers a new open access tool for multi-disciplinary investigation of drought on the island of Ireland.