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The index reports the total number of days per year with a critical level of fire danger. Fire danger is based on the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) which is one of the most commonly used fire indices globally. It is based on a numerical rating of the potential frontal fire intensity and combines the rate of fire spread with the amount of fuel being consumed. The calculation of FWI requires several meteorological input variables (see the ETC-CCA Technical Paper for details). FWI values are classified into several fire danger classes. According to the classification of the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS; EC, 2020), FWI values in the range 11.2-21.3, 21.3-38 and 38-50 represent ‘moderate’, ‘high’ and ‘very high’ fire risk, respectively. However, different classifications are being used at national levels. The index presented here shows the annual number of days with high fire danger conditions (defined as daily FWI values above 30 in the underlying CDS dataset).
The frequency of extreme precipitation refers to the total number of days in a year with total precipitation exceeding the 99th percentile of the daily precipitation values during the reference period. Other implementations of this index may use a different percentile (e.g., 95th) depending on the level of rarity of events to be considered.
The frost days index is defined as the number of days in a year with a daily minimum temperature below 0°C. Variations of this index limit the counting of frost occurrences to particular seasons (e.g., the growing season or the spring months). A closely related index is ‘ice days’, which uses daily maximum instead of minimum temperature.
The growing degree days index represents a measure of the accumulated heat available for vegetation growth. It is calculated as the accumulated sum over the year of the daily mean temperature exceedances of a base threshold (see the ETC-CCA Technical Paper for details). A base temperature of +5 °C is considered as representative for most European crops. Other definitions of the index are possible, including variations of the minimum temperature, the use of an upper temperature threshold, and restrictions to a given growing season.
The map visualizes water holding capacity loss due to the estimated soil sealing increase during 2012 and 2018 in FUAs. Although the figure presents EU27+UK values only, data is available for the EEA-38 region and the UK.
The maximum consecutive five-day precipitation index accounts for the greatest precipitation total over five consecutive days in a year.
Mean temperature is a base index representing the average air temperature over different timescales (e.g., seasonal or annual). This index is well covered by data for past, present and future periods from both observations and model simulations.
The map illustrates groundwater bodies of poor chemical status, affected significantly by diffuse source pollution from agriculture in the EU-27, as reported in national 2016 RBMPs.
Mean wind speed is a base index accounting for the average values of wind speed at 10 m height over longer timescales (e.g., seasonal or annual).
The duration of meteorological droughts represents the average number of months in a year experiencing drought conditions as determined by anomalously low precipitation values. The index is based on the Standardized Precipitation Index aggregated over three months (SPI-3), which accounts for the deficit or surplus of precipitation with respect to a reference period. Alternative aggregation periods for SPI can be used depending on the type of drought considered and the specific applications. SPI values represent standard deviations of precipitation from the long-term mean. A drought event is considered to start when SPI values fall below -1 for at least two consecutive months and to end when the index returns to a positive number (see the ETC-CCA Technical Paper for details).
Total precipitation represents the total amount of precipitation over a given period (e.g., whole year or a season).
The hot days index represents the total number of days in a year registering maximum daily temperature above a fixed threshold. 30 °C is here considered as a suitable threshold at pan-European level, but higher thresholds can be considered depending on the regional climate conditions.
The heating degree days index represents a proxy for the use of energy required for heating buildings. It is computed from the outdoor air temperature as the cumulated daily deviation from a base temperature threshold from October to March (see the ETC-CCA Technical Paper for details). The temperature threshold, period and formulation can vary according to the local climate and applications. A base temperature of 15.5 °C is considered here as representative for the pan-European scale and daily minimum, mean and maximum temperature values are used as input variables.
The extreme precipitation total index represents the total precipitation on all days with heavy precipitation, defined as exceeding the 99th percentile of daily precipitation over the reference period. Therefore, it accounts for both the frequency and magnitude of unusual precipitation events identified with respect to the baseline conditions. Other implementations of this index may use a different percentile (e.g., 95th) depending on the level of rarity of events to be considered.
The warmest three-day mean temperature is the highest daily mean temperature in a year averaged over a three-day window. In variations of this index, the length of the time window over which the moving average of temperature is computed could vary depending on the specific application.
The cooling degree days index represents a proxy for the energy demand for cooling buildings. It is computed from the outdoor air temperature as cumulated daily deviation above a given base temperature threshold from April to September (see the ETC-CCA Technical Paper for details). The temperature threshold, period and formulation of this index can vary according to the local climate and applications. A base temperature of 22 °C is considered here as representative for assessing the energy demand at the pan-European scale and daily minimum, mean and maximum temperature values are used as input ECVs.
Fragmentation is measured as the density of continuous, i.e. unfragmented, semi-natural landscape elements (i.e. meshes). This is calculated by dividing the number of meshes with a unit area, e.g. 1 or 1 000 km². If the landscape is not fragmented, i.e. it consists of a completely continuous landscape, the mesh density is 1. If the number of natural and semi-natural landscape elements in a unit area increases, the landscape becomes more fragmented and the mesh density increases.
Land take is derived from comparing the Urban Atlas 2012 and 2018 datasets of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. Land take is expressed as the converted area in % of the 2012 land cover extent (% of non-urban land cover in 2012 that is converted to urban land cover by 2018). The dataset covers the entire EEA-39 region but Figure 2.5 only presents EU-27+UK countries.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/find/global or scan the QR code.
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