Datasets of meteorological drought events and risks for the developing countries in Eurasia

The datasets present gridded meteorological drought event and country-based drought risk via combing multiple drought indices and socio-economic data in the developing countries of Eurasia. A basic gridded dataset of the drought events during 1950–2015 is extracted from three drought indices, i.e., the self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index, the Standardized Precipitation Index, and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index. The second-level dataset, i.e., drought risk dataset, is then produced as the product of drought hazard, exposure and vulnerability during 2000–2015. Drought exposure chooses population and livestock density, agricultural land and water stress as its indicators, and drought vulnerability composites multiple social, economic and infrastructural factors.