Drought impacts reported in Norwegian media from 2000 to 2018 and their relation to drought indices

Traditional forecast and early warning systems focus primarily on hydrometeorological variables such as precipitation, temperature, streamflow and water levels. To better mitigate the consequences of such events a shift from hazard to impact-based forecasting and prediction is encouraged (WMO, 2016; 2021). In response, this study i) introduces the Norwegian Drought Impacts Database (NODID), and ii) assesses links between drought indices (SPI and SPEI) and impacts. NODID consists of reported drought impacts across various sectors in Norway following the sector specific classification system introduced by Stahl et al. (2016). Currently, the database contains 302 reports detailing 356 drought impacts from 2000 to 2018 sourced from Norwegian media, primarily through the media archive Atekst, which is Norway’s most extensive text archive covering approx. 100 newspapers and journals as well as the Norwegian News Agency back to the mid-eighties. The dataset revealed distinct patterns in drought impacts according to seasonality, regional differences, and sector-specific vulnerabilities. The sectors most affected were agriculture and livestock farming, energy and industry, public water supply, and wildfires. The years 2002, 2014, 2017 and especially 2018 showed the largest numbers of reported impacts across sectors. Extremely low SPI and SPEI values (< -2) were associated with drought impacts during summer, whereas reported impacts were not necessarily related to low SPI/SPEI values. Further work will explore statistical links between impacts and drought indices in a more comprehensive way. The insight gained from this study provides novel information to decision makers, can help identify key societal and environmental vulnerabilities to drought, and guide drought management and adaptation.

References

Stahl, K., Kohn, I., Blauhut, V., et al. (2016) Impacts of European drought events: insights from an international database of text-based reports, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 801–819, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-801-2016, 2016.

WMO Guidelines on Multi-hazard Impact-based Forecast and Warning Services. WMO-No. 1150 (2015, 2021).