R-Factor

Rainfall erosivity, considering rainfall amount and intensity, is an important parameter for soil erosion risk assessment under future land use and climate change. Despite its importance, rainfall erosivity is usually implemented in models with a low spatial and temporal resolution. Here, we present a complete rainfall erosivity dataset (R-factor at 500m resolution ) for the European Union (28 Member States) and Switzerland based on 1675 precipitation stations and 26,394 years of measurements. Gaussian Process Regression(GPR) model was used to interpolate the rainfall erosivity values of single stations and to generate the R-factor map.

Title: Rainfall erosivity in Europe
Spatial coverage: European Union (28 Countries) & Switzerland
Pixel size: 500m 
Measurement Unit: MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1 
Projection: ETRS89 Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area 
Temporal coverage: 40 years - Predominant in the last decade: 2000 - 2010

References: 
A complete description of the methodology and the application in European is described in the paper: 
Panagos, P., Ballabio, C., Borrelli, P., Meusburger, K., Klik, A., Rousseva, S., Tadic, M.P., Michaelides, S., Hrabalíková, M., Olsen, P., Aalto, J., Lakatos, M., Rymszewicz, A., Dumitrescu, A., Beguería, S., Alewell, C. 2015. Rainfall erosivity in Europe. Sci Total Environ. 511, pp. 801-814.

Panagos, P., Ballabio, C., Meusburger, K., Spinoni, J., Alewell, C., Borrelli, P. 2017. Towards estimates of future rainfall erosivity in Europe based on REDES and WorldClim datasets. Journal of Hydrology, 548: 251-262. 

Ballabio, C., Borrelli, P. ,  Spinoni, J.,  Meusburger, K., Michaelides, S.,  Beguería, S., Klik, A., Petan, S., Janecek, M., Olsen, P., Aalto, J.,  Lakatos, M., Rymszewicz, A., Dumitrescu, A.,  Tadić, M.P., Nazzareno, D.,  Kostalova, J., Rousseva, S., Banasik, K., L., Alewell, C. , Panagos, P. 2017. Mapping monthly rainfall erosivity in Europe. Sci Total Environ. 579: 1298-1315

Bezak, N., Ballabio, C., Mikoš, M., Petan, S., Borrelli, P., Panagos, P. 2020. Reconstruction of past rainfall erosivity and trend detection based on the REDES database and reanalysis rainfall. Journal of Hydrology. Article number 125372.

Panagos, P., Ballabio, C., Borrelli, P., Meusburger, K.  2016. Spatio-temporal analysis of rainfall erosivity and erosivity density in Greece.  Catena, 137, 2603, pp. 161-172

Bezak, N., Mikoš, M., Borrelli, P., Liakos, L. and Panagos, P., 2021. An in-depth statistical analysis of the rainstorms erosivity in Europe. Catena, 206, art.no 105577.

Panagos, P., Borrelli, P., Spinoni, J., Ballabio, C., Meusburger, K., Beguería, S., Klik, A., Michaelides, S., Petan, S., Hrabalíková, M., Olsen, P., Aalto, J., Lakatos, M., Rymszewicz, A., Dumitrescu, A., Tadic, M.P.,  Diodato, N., Kostalova, J., Rousseva, S., Banasik, K. Alewell, C.  2016. Monthly rainfall erosivity: conversion factors for different time resolutions and regional assessments. Water, 8(4), No 119.

Data

• R-factor map of Europe Union and Switzerland: Rainfall erosivity (MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1) raster format at 500m resolution (Panagos et al., 2015)

• REDES: Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale. R-factor data for 1,675 stations (based on high temporal resolution rainfall data). Using this dataset should involve also the JRC  (Panagos et al., 2015; Panagos et al., 2016). This is part of the GloREDa Database. Monthly R-factor values or individual erosive (storm) - Events can be made available upon request.

• Erosivity density: The R-factor normalised to annual precipitation amounts (MJ ha-1 h-1) raster format at 500m resolution (Panagos et al., 2015) 

• Standard error of the estimates: Uncertainty of the R-factor prediction calculated with the GPR spatial interpolation model  (Panagos et al., 2015)

• Future erosivity (projections for 2050 based on climate change)  (Panagos et al., 2017)

• Monthly R-factor in Europe: 12 monthly erosivity maps (Ballabio et al., 2017)

• Seasonal R-factor in Europe: 4 seasonal erosivity maps (Ballabio et al., 2017)

• Indicators of rainfall erosivity: K-means Clusters, Erosivity ratio, Coefficient of Variation, Weighted Density, Month with highest R, Month with lowest R  (Ballabio et al., 2017)  

• Extrapolated Erosivity Factor including Balkan States, Ukraine, Belarus, Iceland and Norway

• Past erosivity 1961-2018 in Europe. (Bezak et al., 2020)

• Monthly R-factor in Greece, Annual R-factor (plus standard error) in Greece, seasonal Erosivity Density in Greece (Panagos et al., 2016)

• Rainstorm erosivity indexes (Bezak et al., 2021)

• R-factor in Switzerland : R-factor in Switzerland (2012 application) plus Code and Documentation (Meusburger et al., 2012