Articles | Volume 29, issue 15
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3795-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3795-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
15 Aug 2025
Research article |
| 15 Aug 2025
| 15 Aug 2025
Droughts and media: when and how do the newspapers talk about the droughts in England?
Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich 8057, Switzerland
Jan Seibert
Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich 8057, Switzerland
Ross S. Purves
Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich 8057, Switzerland
Related authors
Inhye Kong and Ross S. Purves
AGILE GIScience Ser., 5, 33, https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-5-33-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-5-33-2024, 2024
Annika Kunz, Ross S. Purves, and Bruna Rohling
AGILE GIScience Ser., 6, 33, https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-6-33-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-6-33-2025, 2025
Leonie Schäfer, Frank Techel, Günter Schmudlach, and Ross S. Purves
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2344, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2344, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Backcountry skiing is a popular form of recreation in Switzerland and worldwide, despite numerous avalanche accidents and fatalities that are recorded each year. There is a need for spatially explicit information on backcountry usage for effective risk estimations and avalanche forecast verification. We successfully used GPS tracks and online engagement data to model daily backcountry skiing base rates in the Swiss Alps based on a set of snow, weather, temporal and environmental variables.
Thiago Victor Medeiros do Nascimento, Julia Rudlang, Sebastian Gnann, Jan Seibert, Markus Hrachowitz, and Fabrizio Fenicia
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-739, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-739, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Large-sample hydrological studies often overlook the importance of detailed landscape data in explaining river flow variability. Analyzing over 4,000 European catchments, we found that geology becomes a dominant factor—especially for baseflow—when using detailed regional maps. This highlights the need for high-resolution geological data to improve river flow regionalization, particularly in non-monitored areas.
Ondrej Hotovy, Ondrej Nedelcev, Jan Seibert, and Michal Jenicek
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2274, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2274, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Rain falling on snow accelerates snowmelt and can affect runoff and cause severe floods. We assessed potential regional and seasonal variations in RoS occurrence in mountainous catchments in Central Europe, using a sensitivity analysis through hydrological model. The results showed that climate change-driven RoS changes vary highly among regions, across elevations, and within the cold season. However, most projections suggested a decrease in the number of RoS and reduced RoS-driven runoff.
Frank Techel, Stephanie Mayer, Ross S. Purves, Günter Schmudlach, and Kurt Winkler
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-158, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-158, 2024
Revised manuscript accepted for NHESS
Short summary
Short summary
We evaluate fully data- and model-driven predictions of avalanche danger in Switzerland and compare them with human-made avalanche forecasts as a benchmark. We show that model predictions perform similarly to human forecasts calling for a systematic integration of forecast chains into the forecasting process.
Franziska Clerc-Schwarzenbach, Giovanni Selleri, Mattia Neri, Elena Toth, Ilja van Meerveld, and Jan Seibert
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 4219–4237, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-4219-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-4219-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We show that the differences between the forcing data included in three CAMELS datasets (US, BR, GB) and the forcing data included for the same catchments in the Caravan dataset affect model calibration considerably. The model performance dropped when the data from the Caravan dataset were used instead of the original data. Most of the model performance drop could be attributed to the differences in precipitation data. However, differences were largest for the potential evapotranspiration data.
Inhye Kong and Ross S. Purves
AGILE GIScience Ser., 5, 33, https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-5-33-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-5-33-2024, 2024
Jana Erdbrügger, Ilja van Meerveld, Jan Seibert, and Kevin Bishop
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 1779–1800, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1779-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1779-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Groundwater can respond quickly to precipitation and is the main source of streamflow in most catchments in humid, temperate climates. To better understand shallow groundwater dynamics, we installed a network of groundwater wells in two boreal headwater catchments in Sweden. We recorded groundwater levels in 75 wells for 2 years and sampled the water and analyzed its chemical composition in one summer. This paper describes these datasets.
Rosanna A. Lane, Gemma Coxon, Jim Freer, Jan Seibert, and Thorsten Wagener
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 5535–5554, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5535-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5535-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This study modelled the impact of climate change on river high flows across Great Britain (GB). Generally, results indicated an increase in the magnitude and frequency of high flows along the west coast of GB by 2050–2075. In contrast, average flows decreased across GB. All flow projections contained large uncertainties; the climate projections were the largest source of uncertainty overall but hydrological modelling uncertainties were considerable in some regions.
Mina Karimi, Mohammad Saadi Mesgari, Ross Stuart Purves, and Omid Reza Abbasi
Abstr. Int. Cartogr. Assoc., 5, 54, https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-abs-5-54-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-abs-5-54-2022, 2022
Daniel Viviroli, Anna E. Sikorska-Senoner, Guillaume Evin, Maria Staudinger, Martina Kauzlaric, Jérémy Chardon, Anne-Catherine Favre, Benoit Hingray, Gilles Nicolet, Damien Raynaud, Jan Seibert, Rolf Weingartner, and Calvin Whealton
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 2891–2920, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2891-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2891-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Estimating the magnitude of rare to very rare floods is a challenging task due to a lack of sufficiently long observations. The challenge is even greater in large river basins, where precipitation patterns and amounts differ considerably between individual events and floods from different parts of the basin coincide. We show that a hydrometeorological model chain can provide plausible estimates in this setting and can thus inform flood risk and safety assessments for critical infrastructure.
Stefan S. Ivanovic and Ross Purves
AGILE GIScience Ser., 3, 39, https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-3-39-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-3-39-2022, 2022
Jan Seibert and Sten Bergström
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 1371–1388, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1371-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1371-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Hydrological catchment models are commonly used as the basis for water resource management planning. The HBV model, which is a typical example of such a model, was first applied about 50 years ago in Sweden. We describe and reflect on the model development and applications. The aim is to provide an understanding of the background of model development and a basis for addressing the balance between model complexity and data availability that will continue to face hydrologists in the future.
Veronika Hutter, Frank Techel, and Ross S. Purves
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3879–3897, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-3879-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-3879-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
How is avalanche danger described in public avalanche forecasts? We analyzed 6000 textual descriptions of avalanche danger in Switzerland, taking the perspective of the forecaster. Avalanche danger was described rather consistently, although the results highlight the difficulty of communicating conditions that are neither rare nor frequent, neither small nor large. The study may help to refine the ways in which avalanche danger could be communicated to the public.
Marit Van Tiel, Anne F. Van Loon, Jan Seibert, and Kerstin Stahl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 3245–3265, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-3245-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-3245-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Glaciers can buffer streamflow during dry and warm periods, but under which circumstances can melt compensate precipitation deficits? Streamflow responses to warm and dry events were analyzed using
long-term observations of 50 glacierized catchments in Norway, Canada, and the European Alps. Region, timing of the event, relative glacier cover, and antecedent event conditions all affect the level of compensation during these events. This implies that glaciers do not compensate straightforwardly.
Camila Alvarez-Garreton, Juan Pablo Boisier, René Garreaud, Jan Seibert, and Marc Vis
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 429–446, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-429-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-429-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The megadrought experienced in Chile (2010–2020) has led to larger than expected water deficits. By analysing 106 basins with snow-/rainfall regimes, we relate such intensification with the hydrological memory of the basins, explained by snow and groundwater. Snow-dominated basins have larger memory and thus accumulate the effect of persistent precipitation deficits more strongly than pluvial basins. This notably affects central Chile, a water-limited region where most of the population lives.
Anna E. Sikorska-Senoner, Bettina Schaefli, and Jan Seibert
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 3521–3549, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3521-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3521-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This work proposes methods for reducing the computational requirements of hydrological simulations for the estimation of very rare floods that occur on average less than once in 1000 years. These methods enable the analysis of long streamflow time series (here for example 10 000 years) at low computational costs and with modelling uncertainty. They are to be used within continuous simulation frameworks with long input time series and are readily transferable to similar simulation tasks.
Maria Staudinger, Stefan Seeger, Barbara Herbstritt, Michael Stoelzle, Jan Seibert, Kerstin Stahl, and Markus Weiler
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 3057–3066, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3057-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3057-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The data set CH-IRP provides isotope composition in precipitation and streamflow from 23 Swiss catchments, being unique regarding its long-term multi-catchment coverage along an alpine–pre-alpine gradient. CH-IRP contains fortnightly time series of stable water isotopes from streamflow grab samples complemented by time series in precipitation. Sampling conditions, catchment and climate information, lab standards and errors are provided together with areal precipitation and catchment boundaries.
Marc Girons Lopez, Marc J. P. Vis, Michal Jenicek, Nena Griessinger, and Jan Seibert
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4441–4461, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4441-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4441-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Snow processes are crucial for runoff in mountainous areas, but their complexity makes water management difficult. Temperature models are widely used as they are simple and do not require much data, but not much thought is usually given to which model to use, which may lead to bad predictions. We studied the impact of many model alternatives and found that a more complex model does not necessarily perform better. Finding which processes are most important in each area is a much better strategy.
Cited articles
Acheson, E. and Purves, R. S.: Extracting and modeling geographic information from scientific articles, PLoS One, 16, 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244918, 2021.
Antwi, S. H., Rolston, A., Linnane, S., and Getty, D.: Communicating water availability to improve awareness and implementation of water conservation: A study of the 2018 and 2020 drought events in the Republic of Ireland, Sci. Total Environ., 807, 150865, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150865, 2022.
Barker, L. J., Hannaford, J., Magee, E., Turner, S., Sefton, C., Parry, S., Evans, J., Szczykulska, M., and Haxton, T.: An appraisal of the severity of the 2022 drought and its impacts, Weather, 79, 208–219, https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.4531, 2024.
Bayliss, K., Mattioli, G., and Steinberger, J.: Inequality, poverty and the privatization of essential services: A “systems of provision” study of water, energy and local buses in the UK, Compet. Chang., 25, 478–500, https://doi.org/10.1177/1024529420964933, 2021.
Benoit, K. and Matsuo, A.: spacyr: Wrapper to the “spaCy” “NLP” Library, R package version 1.2.1, https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=spacyr (last access: 30 May 2024), 2020.
Blei, D., Carin, L., and Dunson, D.: Probabilistic Topic Models, IEEE Signal Proc. Mag., 27, 55–65, https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2010.938079, 2010.
Bohr, J.: Reporting on climate change: A computational analysis of U.S. newspapers and sources of bias, 1997–2017, Global Environ. Chang., 61, 102038, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102038, 2020.
Boykoff, M. T.: The cultural politics of climate change discourse in UK tabloids, Polit. Geogr., 27, 549–569, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2008.05.002, 2008.
Brimicombe, C.: Is there a climate change reporting bias? A case study of English-language news articles, 2017–2022, Geosci. Commun., 5, 281–287, https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-5-281-2022, 2022.
Caple, H.: News Values and Newsworthiness, Oxford Res. Encycl. Commun., 1–21, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.850, 2018.
Dayrell, C., Svensson, C., Hannaford, J., McEnery, T., Barker, L. J., Baker, H., and Tanguy, M.: Representation of Drought Events in the United Kingdom: Contrasting 200 years of News Texts and Rainfall Records, Front. Environ. Sci., 10, 1–18, https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.760147, 2022.
Dessai, S. and Sims, C.: Public perception of drought and climate change in southeast england, Environ. Hazards, 9, 340–357, https://doi.org/10.3763/ehaz.2010.0037, 2010.
Dobson, B., Coxon, G., Freer, J., Gavin, H., Mortazavi-Naeini, M., and Hall, J. W.: The Spatial Dynamics of Droughts and Water Scarcity in England and Wales, Water Resour. Res., 56, e2020WR027187, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR027187, 2020.
Dow, K.: News coverage of drought impacts and vulnerability in the US Carolinas, 1998–2007, Nat. Hazards, 54, 497–518, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9482-0, 2010.
Folland, C. K., Hannaford, J., Bloomfield, J. P., Kendon, M., Svensson, C., Marchant, B. P., Prior, J., and Wallace, E.: Multi-annual droughts in the English Lowlands: a review of their characteristics and climate drivers in the winter half-year, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 2353–2375, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2353-2015, 2015.
Green, J. A.: Too many zeros and/or highly skewed? A tutorial on modelling health behaviour as count data with Poisson and negative binomial regression, Heal. Psychol. Behav. Med., 9, 436–455, https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2021.1920416, 2021.
Guerreiro, S. B., Dawson, R. J., Kilsby, C., Lewis, E., and Ford, A.: Future heat-waves, droughts and floods in 571 European cities, Environ. Res. Lett., 13, 034009, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaaad3, 2018.
Hart, P. S., Nisbet, E. C., and Myers, T. A.: Public attention to science and political news and support for climate change mitigation, Nat. Clim. Change, 5, 541–545, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2577, 2015.
Holmes, G., Rowland, G., and Fox, K.: Eager about beavers? Understanding opposition to species reintroduction, and its implications for conservation, People Nat., 6, 1524–1537, https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10674, 2024.
IPCC: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report, Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.59327/IPCC/AR6-9789291691647, 2023.
Kay, A. L., Bell, V. A., Davies, H. N., Lane, R. A., and Rudd, A. C.: The UKSCAPE-G2G river flow and soil moisture datasets: Grid-to-Grid model estimates for the UK for historical and potential future climates, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 2533–2546, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2533-2023, 2023.
Kim, S., Shao, W., and Kam, J.: Spatiotemporal patterns of US drought awareness, Palgrave Commun., 5, 1–9, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0317-7, 2019.
Linés, C., Werner, M., and Bastiaanssen, W.: The predictability of reported drought events and impacts in the Ebro Basin using six different remote sensing data sets, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 4747–4765, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4747-2017, 2017.
Marsh, T. The 2004–2006 drought in southern Britain, Weather, 62, 191–196, https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.99, 2007.
Marsh, T., Cole, G., and Wilby, R.: Major droughts in England and Wales, 1800–2006, Weather, 62, 87–93, https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.67, 2007.
Marsh, T.: The UK drought of 2003 – an overview, Weather, 59, 224—230, https://doi.org/10.1256/wea.79.04, 2004.
Marsh, T. J., Parry, S., Kendon, M. C., and Hannaford, J.: The 2010–12 drought and subsequent extensive flooding, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/503643/1/N503643CR.pdf (last access: 9 July 2025), 2013.
Murphy, C., Wilby, R. L., Matthews, T., Horvath, C., Crampsie, A., Ludlow, F., Noone, S., Brannigan, J., Hannaford, J., McLeman, R., and Jobbova, E.: The forgotten drought of 1765–1768: Reconstructing and re-evaluating historical droughts in the British and Irish Isles, Int. J. Climatol., 40, 5329–5351, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6521, 2020.
Nexis Uni: https://www.advance.lexis.com, last access: 4 August 2025.
Noone, S., Broderick, C., Duffy, C., Matthews, T., Wilby, R. L., and Murphy, C.: A 250-year drought catalogue for the island of Ireland (1765–2015), Int. J. Climatol., 37, 239–254, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.4999, 2017.
Norton, C. and Hulme, M.: Telling one story, or many? An ecolinguistic analysis of climate change stories in UK national newspaper editorials, Geoforum, 104, 114–136, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.01.017, 2019.
Nowosad, J.: CARTOColors palettes (R package version 1.0.0), https://jakubnowosad.com/rcartocolor/ (last access: 8 July 2025), 2018.
O'Connor, P., Murphy, C., Matthews, T., and Wilby, R. L.: Relating drought indices to impacts reported in newspaper articles, Int. J. Climatol., 43, 1796–1816, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7946, 2023.
Osaka, S., Painter, J., Walton, P., and Halperin, A.: Media representation of extreme event attribution: A case study of the 2011–17 california drought, Weather. Clim. Soc., 12, 847–862, https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-19-0050.1, 2020.
Painter, J., Ettinger, J., Doutreix, M. N., Strauß, N., Wonneberger, A., and Walton, P.: Is it climate change? Coverage by online news sites of the 2019 European summer heatwaves in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK, Climatic Change, 169, 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03222-w, 2021.
Parker, D. E., Legg, T. P., and Folland, C. K.: A new daily central England temperature series, 1772–1991, Int. J. Climatol., 12, 317–342, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3370120402, 1992.
Parsons, D. J., Rey, D., Tanguy, M., and Holman, I. P.: Regional variations in the link between drought indices and reported agricultural impacts of drought, Agr. Syst., 173, 119–129, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2019.02.015, 2019.
Parry, S., Marsh, T., and Kendon, M.: 2012: From drought to floods in England and Wales, Weather, 68, 268–274, https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.2152, 2013.
Pianta, S. and Sisco, M. R.: A hot topic in hot times: How media coverage of climate change is affected by temperature abnormalities, Environ. Res. Lett., 15, 114038, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abb732, 2020.
Quesnel, K. J. and Ajami, N. K.: Changes in water consumption linked to heavy news media coverage of extreme climatic events, Sci. Adv., 3, 1–10, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1700784, 2017.
R Core Team: R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing, R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria, https://www.R-project.org/ (last access: 9 July 2025), 2023.
Roberts, M. E., Stewart, B. M., and Tingley, D.: Stm: An R package for structural topic models, J. Stat. Softw., 91, 1–40 https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v091.i02, 2019.
Robins, L., Burt, T. P., Bracken, L. J., Boardman, J., and Thompson, D. B. A.: Making water policy work in the United Kingdom: A case study of practical approaches to strengthening complex, multi-tiered systems of water governance, Environ. Sci. Policy, 71, 41–55, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2017.01.008, 2017.
Schmidt, A., Ivanova, A., and Schäfer, M. S.: Media attention for climate change around the world: A comparative analysis of newspaper coverage in 27 countries, Global Environ. Chang., 23, 1233–1248, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.07.020, 2013.
Sodoge, J., Kuhlicke, C., and de Brito, M. M.: Automatized spatio-temporal detection of drought impacts from newspaper articles using natural language processing and machine learning, Weather Clim. Extrem., 41, 100574, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2023.100574, 2023.
Spinoni, J., Vogt, J. V., Naumann, G., Barbosa, P., and Dosio, A.: Will drought events become more frequent and severe in Europe?, Int. J. Climatol., 38, 1718–1736, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5291, 2018.
Stahl, K., Kohn, I., Blauhut, V., Urquijo, J., De Stefano, L., Acácio, V., Dias, S., Stagge, J. H., Tallaksen, L. M., Kampragou, E., Van Loon, A. F., Barker, L. J., Melsen, L. A., Bifulco, C., Musolino, D., de Carli, A., Massarutto, A., Assimacopoulos, D., and Van Lanen, H. A. J.: Impacts of European drought events: insights from an international database of text-based reports, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 801–819, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-801-2016, 2016.
Tanguy, M., Haslinger, K., Svensson, C., Parry, S., Barker, L. J., Hannaford, J., and Prudhomme, C.: Regional Differences in Spatiotemporal Drought Characteristics in Great Britain, Front. Environ. Sci., 9, 639649, https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.639649, 2021.
Tennekes, M.: treemap: Treemap Visualization, R package version 2.4-4, https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=treemap (last access: 30 May 2024), 2023.
Tijdeman, E., Hannaford, J., and Stahl, K.: Human influences on streamflow drought characteristics in England and Wales, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 1051–1064, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-1051-2018, 2018.
Turner, S., Barker, L. J., Hannaford, J., Muchan, K., Parry, S., and Sefton, C.: The 2018/2019 drought in the UK: a hydrological appraisal, Weather, 76, 248–253, https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.4003, 2021.
UKCEH (UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology): Major Hydrological Events, https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/occasional-reports, last access 4 August 2025.
Vargas Molina, J., Paneque Salgado, P., and Augusto Breda Fontão, P.: Drought-related media analysis from Andalusia and São Paulo, Environ. Hazards, 21, 174–197, https://doi.org/10.1080/17477891.2021.1932712, 2022.
Van Loon, A. F.: Hydrological drought explained, Wires Water, 2, 359–392, https://doi.org/10.1002/WAT2.1085, 2015.
Venables, W. N. and Ripley, B. D.: Modern Applied Statistics with S, Fourth Edition, Springer, New York, ISBN 978-0-387-21706-2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-21706-2, 2002.
Wei, J., Wei, Y., Western, A., Skinner, D., and Lyle, C.: Evolution of newspaper coverage of water issues in Australia during 1843–2011, Ambio, 44, 319–331, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-014-0571-2, 2015.
Wilhite, D. A. and Glantz, M. H.: Understanding: The drought phenomenon: The role of definitions, Water Int., 10, 111–120, https://doi.org/10.1080/02508068508686328, 1985.
Wong, B.: Color blindness, Nat. Methods, 8, 441, https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1618, 2011.
Zhang, T., Shen, S., Cheng, C., Su, K., and Zhang, X.: A topic model based framework for identifying the distribution of demand for relief supplies using social media data, Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Sci., 35, 2216–2237, https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2020.1869746, 2021.
Short summary
This study examines the timing and topics of newspaper coverage of droughts in England. Media attention correlated with drought-prone hydroclimatic conditions, particularly low precipitation and low groundwater levels, but also showed a seasonality bias, with more coverage in spring and summer, as exemplified by the 2022 summer drought. The findings reveal complex media dynamics in science communication, suggesting potential gaps in how droughts are framed by scientists versus the media.
This study examines the timing and topics of newspaper coverage of droughts in England. Media...
