Supplementary material to "The 2022 Drought Needs to be a Turning Point for European Drought Risk Management"

The 2022 European drought has underscored critical deficiencies in European water management. This paper delves into these shortcomings and suggests a way forward for European drought risk management using a Europe-wide survey among water managers involved in the 2022 event. Information from the survey is enriched with climate-related information to offer a comprehensive overview of drought risk management in Europe. Our research focuses on four key aspects: the increasing risk of drought, its spatial and temporal impacts, current drought risk management approaches, and the evolution of drought risk management across the continent. Our findings reveal a consensus on the growing risk of drought, which is confounded by the rising frequency and intensity of droughts. While the 2022 event affected most of the continent, our findings show significant regional disparities in drought risk management capacity among the various countries. Our analysis indicates that current drought risk management measures often rely on short-term operational concerns, particularly in agriculture-dominated economies, leading to potentially maladaptive practices. Finally, the study clearly shows an overall positive trend in drought risk management, with organizations showing increased awareness and preparedness. Still, our results also show awareness growing faster than preparedness, indicating how this crisis can be the ideal moment to mainstream European-wide drought risk management. The study stresses the need for continent-wide coordination in drought risk management. Consequently, we advocate for a European Drought Directive, to harmonize and enforce drought risk management policies across the continent. This directive should promote a systemic, integrated, and long-term risk management perspective. Key principles should include managing drought risk holistically, recognizing droughts as continuous and systemic events, and prioritizing environmental sustainability and water demand reduction. The directive should also set clear guidelines for drought risk management at the national level and for cross-boundary drought collaboration. This study and its companion paperThe 2022 Drought Shows the Importance of Preparedness in European Drought Risk Management are the result of a study carried out by the Drought in the Anthropocene (DitA) network. S1. Questionnaire S1. 1 Content of the questionnaire ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Impacts and response during the 2022 European drought -questionnaireOver the span of just five years, Europe has been hit by two major drought events, the 2018-2019 drought, and 2022 drought which is still ongoing in parts of Europe. In particular, the latter has been reported as being the worst drought hitting the