Title of the dataset:
Data underlying the publication: Linking reported drought impacts with drought indices, water scarcity and, aridity: the case of Kenya

Creators:
Marleen R. Lam		Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management, Wageningen University & Research	ORCID: 0000-0001-9787-7228
Rhoda Odongo		Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam		ORCID: 0000-0002-2315-8500

Contributors:
Alessia Matanó		Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam		ORCID: 0000-0002-9735-0589
Anne F. van Loon	Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam		ORCID: 0000-0003-2308-0392
Aklilu D. Teklesadik	510, an initiative of the Netherlands Red Cross, The Hague			ORCID: 0000-0003-4481-3292
Adriaan J. Teuling	Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management, Wageningen University & Research	ORCID: 0000-0003-4302-2835

Related publication:
Linking reported drought impacts with drought indices, water scarcity and, aridity: the case of Kenya

Description:
This dataset have been used to assess the relation between reported drought impacts, drought indices, water scarcity, and aridity across several counties in Kenya. We have collected monthly county-specific drought impact data from county-specific bulletins (County Early Warning Bulletins) of the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) in Kenya. The following drought impact categories were considered: pasture, livestock deaths, milk production, crop losses, food insecurity, trekking distance for water, and malnutrition. Only days with drought impacts are considered in this datafile. In addition, the datafile contains information about several drought indicators (SPI, SPEI, SSMI and SSI), water scarcity information (Classification) and Drought_phase and Rainfall information (according to the NDMA). 

Keywords:
Drought; Drought impacts; Drought indices; Water scarcity; Aridity

Spatial coverage:
Kenya, specifically the following counties: Baringo, Kitui, Kwale, Marsabit, Narok, Nyeri

Temporal coverage:
2013/07 - 2020/12. However, water scarcity (Classification) data was only available from March 2018 untill 2020. 

This dataset contains the following files:
Impacts_drought_indicators_WS.xlsx
Impacts_drought_indicators_WS.csv

Explanation of variables:
* SSMI: The Standardized Soil Moisture Index
* SSI:  The Standardized Streamflow Index 
* SPEI: The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index
* SPI:  The Standardized Precipitation Index
* Classification: This variable represents the Water scarcity information according to the Falkenmark index. 

Methods, materials and software:
The text-based drought impact data from the NDMA were turned into quantitative binary values by comparing if the drought impact category value was different from normal values for that time of the year (compared to previous years). All the four drought indices (SPI, SPEI, SSMI and SSI) were calculated on a monthly timescale at the original grid scale with an accumulation period of 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months. The drought indices were calculated for the period 1980-2020. However, this dataset only contains the values according to the occurrence of drought impacts within the analyzed drought impact categories. More information about the calculation of the drought indicators can be found in the manuscript.  Water scarcity data has been retrieved from McNally et al. (2019): this article explains the development of a monthly-updated water scarcity dataset with a spatial resolution of 0.1 degree for Africa between March 2018 and present. This water scarcity dataset have been aggregated for the whole of Kenya whereafter monthly average values per county have been calculated and classified by the Falkenmark index (Classification). Information about the Falkenmark index can be found in the manuscript. 

References:
Data collection from:
County-specific bulletins (County Early Warning Bulletins) of the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) in Kenya.
https://ndma.go.ke/index.php/resource-center/early-warning-reports

Methods from:
McNally, A., Verdin, K., Harrison, L., Getirana, A., Jacob, J., Shukla, S., Arsenault, K., Peters-Lidard, C., & Verdin, J. P. (2019). Acute water-scarcity monitoring for Africa. Water, 11(10), 1968. {https://doi.org/10.3390/w11101968}

This dataset is published under the CC BY (Attribution) license.
This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator.

