Pinke et al. (2026) Heat and drought exposure in the European agrarian sector: crop concentration amplifies climate sensitivity in national farming systems

Data sources We compiled country-level data on crop harvested area (ha), crop yields (t ha-1), crop production quantity (t ha-1), and the value of gross production in current price (USD) from FAOSTAT for European countries over the period from 1993 to 2022. Countries with incomplete data or negligible agricultural production were excluded. The analysis focuses on five major crops - wheat, maize, barley, rapeseed, and sunflower - which together account for a dominant share of crop production and land use in Europe. The period between 1993 and 2022 covered by the study was determined by the fact that several European countries, including important grain producers, were established and their statistics were reorganised in the years of 1991 and 1992, following the geopolitical changes in Central and Eastern Europe. Heat stress was represented by the monthly mean of daily maximum temperature (Tmax), while drought stress was represented by the climatic water balance calculated as the difference between monthly precipitation sums and potential evapotranspiration (Prec–PET). The gridded data of mean monthly Prec (mm month−1), PET (mm month−1), and Tmax (C° month−1) at 0.5° resolution were extracted from the CRU TS 4.08 data series using the KNMI Climate Explorer. The croplands of Europe were mapped by selecting those grid cells from the EarthStat cropland 5′ × 5′ grid dataset in which croplands cover at least 20% of the cell area. The 20% threshold was determined by trial and error; the goal was to exclude spatially separated croplands in mostly mountainous areas while keeping the transition zones between wide contiguous croplands and adjacent areas with other land-use types.