Average annual area affected by water deficit, by land cover type and country

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Methodology

Standardized anomalies of yearly vegetation productivity during 2000-2016 are analyzed in areas with statistically significant drought pressure measured as precipitation shortages and low soil moisture content.

Anomalies are expressed in standard deviations compared to the long term average vegetation productivity conditions for each 500m grid cell in the EEA39 region. Negative vegetation productivity anomalies indicate vegetation productivity conditions that are less than the long term normal condition.

The extent of the impacted area is calculated from the sum of those grid cells where the vegetation productivity anomaly was below -1 standard deviation in the given year.

In order to exclude low vegetation anomaly signals in the time series, only those grid cells were considered in this analysis where the Corine Land Cover (CLC) 2000-2018 series indicated no land use change between 2000-2018.

Unit

The vegetation productivity index is a dimensionless measure. It is calculated as the integral value of the yearly vegetation index. Hence, digital values indicate the approximated productivity of the land surface vegetation. The anomalies are standardised and hence are expressed in standard deviation units. The affected area is exressed in km².

Average annual area affected by water deficit, by land cover type and country

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