Dataset on Weather-related Disasters in Agriculture (WDA) in Italy 2005-2021

Area of Science:

• Agricultural Science
• Climatology
• Disaster Management

Background:

• The Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) established an Observatory for Agricultural Meteorology and Climatology.
• A relational SQL geodatabase was created using official decrees on agricultural disaster declarations in Italy.
• Data originates from the "National Solidarity Fund for natural disasters in agriculture" (Italian law d.lgs. 102/2004).

Purpose of the Study:

• To create and publish a comprehensive dataset on weather-related agricultural disasters.
• To provide valuable data for agricultural risk assessment and agrometeorological analyses.
• To support research on the impacts of extreme weather events on agriculture.

Main Methods:

• Data compilation from official Italian Ministry decrees on disaster declarations.
• Creation of a relational SQL geodatabase managed by CREA.
• Extraction and publication of a dataset (2005-2021) in CSV format on the Zenodo repository with metadata.

Main Results:

• A publicly accessible dataset covering agricultural weather disasters from 2005 to 2021 is now available.
• The dataset includes various disaster types: drought, snow, frost, hail, heat stress, floods, heavy rain, tornadoes, and strong winds.
• The data is annotated with discovery and structural metadata for enhanced usability.

Conclusions:

• The published dataset facilitates improved weather-related risk assessment in agriculture.
• This resource supports agrometeorological studies on extreme weather events impacting crops and farming.
• The dataset will be periodically updated to ensure continued relevance and accuracy.