Projected annual rate of change of the crop water deficit of grain maize during the growing season in Europe for the period 2015-2045 for two climate scenarios. The crop water deficit is the difference between the crop-specific water requirement (in this case grain maize) and the water available through precipitation. The climate forcing of the two simulations is based on the two global climate models HadGEM2 and MIROC, taken from CMIP5 and bias-corrected by the ISI-MIP project (Warszawski et al., 2014). Crop model simulations have been done with the crop model WOFOST at 25 km resolution. Red colours show an increase of the gap between crop water requirement and water availability, blue colours indicate a reduction of the deficit. Areas where the seasonal crop water requirement exceeds regularly (i.e. in more than 90 % of the years) the water available through precipitation have been marked by hatches. Areas without hatches experience both deficit and surplus or only a surplus of water. In this case, red colours refer to a reduced surplus, while blue colours indicate an increasing surplus of water.