Potential of pan-European seasonal hydro-meteorological drought forecasts obtained from a Multi-Hazard Early Warning System

Abstract

Drought early warning systems (DEWS) have been developed in several countries in response to high socio-economic losses caused by droughts. In Europe, the European Drought Observatory (EDO) monitors the ongoing drought and forecasts soil moisture anomalies up to 7 days ahead and meteorological drought up to 3 months ahead. However, end-users managing water resources often require hydrological drought warning several months in advance. To answer this challenge, a seasonal pan-European DEWS has been developed and running in a pre-operational mode since mid-2018 under the EU-funded ANYWHERE project. The ANYWHERE DEWS (AD-EWS) is different compared to other operational DEWS in the sense that the AD-EWS provides a wide range of seasonal hydro-meteorological drought forecasting products in addition to meteorological drought i.e. a broad suite of drought indices that covers all water cycle components (drought in precipitation, soil moisture, runoff, discharge, and groundwater). The ability of the AD-EWS to provide seasonal drought predictions in high spatial resolution (5 x 5 km) and its diverse products, mark the ADEWS as a pre-operational drought forecasting system that can serve a broad range of different user’ needs in Europe. This paper introduces the AD-EWS and shows some examples of different drought forecasting products, the drought forecast score, and some examples of a user-driven assessment of forecast trust levels.