<p>In recent years, research on drought risk has expanded to include multiple types of drought hazards, various exposed elements and a multitude of factors that determine the vulnerability of a given system or sector. This has resulted in a call from the scientific community to adopt a systemic risk perspective on drought. However, a thorough understanding of how drought risks manifest, cascade and interact across different systems and sectors is still lacking, and methodological guidance on how to analyse and represent these interdependencies does not yet exist.&#160; In order to explore these gaps, we have developed conceptual models of drought risks for key selected systems and sectors in the European Union.&#160;</p> <p>For each system and sector considered (rain fed and irrigated agricultural systems, forest ecosystems, freshwater ecosystems, public water supply, inland water transport and the energy sector), a conceptual model was constructed to depict how drivers and root causes interact to create drought risk. The models are based on the impact chains methodology and are informed by literature review and multiple expert consultations (including a series of validation workshops). Subsequently, the system-specific models were used to build an overarching conceptual model of the critical interdependencies that exist between all the systems and sectors considered.&#160;</p> <p>The analysis has revealed that, in each system, drought risks manifest through a complex web of interactions between drivers of risk, which are in part system-specific and in part shared across the systems considered. From this, multiple considerations for drought risk assessment and management can be derived. In particular, special attention should be placed in defining and representing what drought risk is in each system, as the underlying characteristics might greatly differ. Additionally, the use of conceptual models can constitute an important first step for risk assessment, as they contribute to addressing the complexity of drought risks. Finally, the existence of commonalities and interdependencies between systems implies that interventions can and must be designed so as to consider multiple systems at once, thus avoiding maladaptive solutions. In this sense, the conceptual models can serve as entry points for the identification of risk reduction and adaptation measures which go beyond the single-risk and single-sector perspective, thus contributing to a more systemic view on drought risk management and adaptation, as well as highlighting persisting knowledge gaps.</p>
<p>Drought affects almost every aspect of the environment and society. However, specific sectoral drought impact and risk assessments are often excluded from loss estimates because they are difficult to quantify and/or model. Effectively assessing and managing drought risk requires a multi-scale and multi-sectoral approach to understand the different dimensions of drought.&#160;</p> <p>The European Drought Observatory for Resilience and Adaptation (EDORA) project addresses the study of drought risk in a multi-system perspective in the European Union. The sectors and systems included in the assessment are agriculture, energy production, water supply, water transport and ecosystems.&#160;</p> <p>A proper collection and classification of past drought impact data is essential for risk assessment. To this end, we are developing a database of recorded impacts for each system, which can be fed by semi-automated media monitoring, official reports and manual data entries from potential observers. The collection and systematisation of sector specific impacts of drought aims at filling an important gap at the European scale.</p> <p>Drought risk is assessed in two complementary ways. Risk drivers, root causes of risk and cascading effects are identified and mapped through system-specific impact chains informed by a systematic literature review and expert consultation (including validation workshops). An integrated, cross-system model unveils the interconnections and complexity of drought risk. Also, a modelling tool to quantitatively assess drought risk&#160; was developed for different systems and different regions using machine learning techniques. This data-driven technique uncovers the vulnerability-specific interactions between hazard and impact under present and projected climate conditions. The outcomes of the risk assessments are collected into an atlas showing European multisectoral drought risk at subnational level.</p>
<p>The impacts of drought events can be diverse, far-reaching and encompass multiple sectors and systems. This became particularly evident in recent droughts in Europe (e.g. 2018 and 2022), when, together with extensive damages to agriculture across the whole continent, severe impacts on public water supply, energy production and riverine transportation were also registered. However, while the scientific community has called for the study of these events in their multi-sectoral complexity, research on drought risk and impacts still tends to be conducted in sectoral and disciplinary silos, with different conceptualizations, terminology and methodologies evolving in relative isolation. In order to assess the state of multi-sectoral drought risk research in the European Union, we have completed a systematic literature review (n=168) aimed at understanding how different sectors and systems are represented in drought impacts and risk assessment research in the 27 countries of the European Union (EU27). The analysis focused on peer-reviewed publications and conference proceedings from 2000 to 2022, sourced through the Scopus database, and returned a research landscape where agricultural applications are predominant across the period considered, but in which the representation of other sectors and systems (e.g. energy, ecosystems) is steadily increasing throughout the years. However, only a minority of the studies tackle more than one sector or system (e.g. agriculture and ecosystems), and in most cases the multi-sectoral perspective is not accompanied by a fully integrated assessment of risk in its hazard, exposure and vulnerability components. Another trend of interest is the progressive, albeit still limited, increase in the representation of different geographical clusters among the studies analysed: in particular, while Southern European countries (e.g. Spain, Italy, Portugal) lead in number of case studies, applications to Western European countries (e.g. Germany, France, Austria) have become more frequent. These results can be interpreted as a general improvement towards a more unified understanding and characterization of drought events, but also point at a still high compartmentalization across sectoral fields. Because of the complexity of droughts, this persisting separation may hinder progress towards a common conceptualization of drought events as systemic and multi-sectoral events with multiple direct, indirect and cascading impacts. In particular, a stronger focus on multi-sectoral risk analysis could provide actionable information to support the identification of solutions capable of tackling multiple issues, thus expanding the policy space into which drought risk management can operate.</p>
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