dataset · United Kingdom
Government / regulator
Historic Gridded Standardised Precipitation Index for the United Kingdom 1862-2015 (generated using gamma distribution with standard period 1961-2010) v4
5km gridded Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI) data for Great Britain, which is a drought index based on the probability of precipitation for a given accumulation period as defined by McKee et al [1]. There are seven accumulation periods: 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24 months and for each period SPI is calculated for each of the twelve calendar months. Note that values in monthly (and for longer accumulation periods also annual) time series of the data therefore are likely to be autocorrelated. The
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What's in it
- Data offered docs-verified
- Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI), gridded 5 km · SPI at 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24-month accumulation periods · SPI calculated for each of the twelve calendar months
- Coverage docs-verified
- Great Britain · 1862-2015
- Resolution docs-verified
- 5 km raster grid (OSGB 1936 / British National Grid); SPI calculated per calendar month
- Formats docs-verified
- NetCDF
- Access docs-verified
- Licence terms apply (Non-Open Government Licence per catalogue metadata); scripted download (wget/curl) requires a personal access token
Useful for
- Use cases llm-inferred
- Long-term (1862 onward) SPI drought context for water resources or drought risk statements · Historic rainfall-deficit screening for drainage or groundwater recharge assessments · Regional SPI baseline mapping for Great Britain catchments in environmental impact assessments
- Audience llm-inferred
- hydrologists · water resources engineers · environmental consultants · climate and drought risk analysts · GIS analysts
Limitations
- Constraints docs-verified
- Record ends 31 December 2015, so recent drought periods are not covered · Monthly and longer-accumulation SPI values are autocorrelated · Versions 2 and 3 are superseded by v4 due to minor data file errors · Title says United Kingdom but docs describe Great Britain coverage · Licence terms apply and the dataset must be cited
- Licence
- Non-Open government licence
- Authentication
- Unknown — review source docs
- GitHub stars
- Unknown
- Last commit
- Unknown
- Last successful page check
- 16/10/2026
- Page health
- healthy
- Package
- Not recorded
- Verification
- Not independently verified
Provenance & evidence
Listed in ukceh-eidc public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).
Metadata observed 14/10/2026 · research sweep: sweep-2026-10-16 (ukceh-eidc)