A European coastal storm impact database of resources: the ECFAS effort

This article introduces a novel database (DB) containing resources of information on extreme coastal storms that generated major damage and flooding along European coastal zones over the period 2010-2020. The methodology implemented for the construction of the database and its current contents are presented here. In the database, the storm events are linked to sites where impact was observed, making them test-cases for further activities of the EU H2020 ECFAS Project. This definition allows discriminating the collected information from different storms hitting the same area. The database is distributed as an Excel Workbook and constitutes a comprehensive and user-friendly inventory of different types of resources that report impact, flood characteristics, hydrodynamics and weather information related both to the pre-selected extreme events and to the test-cases. Polygons are also additionally provided in a GeoJSON format defining the sites. A total of 11 coastal events, 28 sites, 26 test-cases, and 207 resources are recorded in the database. New events, sites, test-cases and resources can constantly be incorporated, making it a “living tool”.