Brief communication: Storm Daniel Flood Impact in Greece 2023: Mapping Crop and Livestock Exposure from SAR

Abstract

Abstract. For this communication, we analyzed the crop area and numbers of livestock exposed to flooding from the historic precipitation caused by storm Daniel in central Greece on September 3–8, 2023. We derived from the near-real-time RAdar-Produced Inundation Diary (RAPID) system an inundated area totaling 1,150 km2, located mainly in the Thessalian plain. By overlaying a land cover map on the RAPID inundation map, we found that ~820 km2 (70 %) of the inundated area was agricultural land. A detailed distribution map of crop type and animal farms revealed that the crop most affected by the flooding was cotton; the inundated area of more than 282 km2 comprised ~30 % of the total area planted with cotton in central Greece. In terms of livestock, we estimated more than 14,000 ornithoids and 21,500 sheep and goats were affected. Consequences for agriculture and animal husbandry in Greece are expected to be severe.

Post-Analysis of Daniel Extreme Flood Event in Thessaly, Central Greece: Practical Lessons and the Value of State-of-the-Art Water-Monitoring Networks

“…Long-term effects on soil fertility and future production may also take place, due to the destruction of crops, fertilizers and mechanical equipment. Given the dominant role of the Thessalian Plain as Greece's main agricultural area, its breadbasket in particular, it becomes clear that Storm Daniel is expected to have a disastrous impact on the local and national economies [59].…”

“…As already mentioned, Storm Daniel caused extensive damage over the study area, since large parts of the basin were inundated. In the overall region of Thessaly, the total extent of flooded areas exceeded 1150 km 2 [59]. To assess in more detail the spatiotemporal evolution of the inundation process, we retrieved associated data from the Emergency Management Service of Copernicus (https://rapidmapping.emergency.copernicus.eu/ EMSR692, accessed on 22 March 2024) regarding three major domains of interest (from upstream to downstream: Karditsa, Palamas, and Larissa).…”

Loss and damage fund: a satellite imagery-driven framework for rapid resource allocation in flood scenarios

“…The Thessaly region, produced using Quantum GIS (QGIS) 21 alone were estimated to range between 1.5 billion and 2.5 billion euros. The Thessalian plain in Greece serves as the primary agricultural hub, contributing approximately 12.2%to the country's agricultural industry's gross value added 22 .…”

Animal Health Discourse during Ecological Crisis in the Media. Lessons Learnt from the Flood in Thessaly from the One Health Perspective

“…Precision farming is widely used by Greek farmers. This allows to monitor the impact of the Daniel storm on crops and livestock [5]. Besides, we analyze human gastroenterological disease dynamics using real-time syndromic surveillance systems [6].…”