Articles | Volume 26, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-2609-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-2609-2026
Research article
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04 Jun 2026
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 04 Jun 2026

Wikimpacts 1.0: a new global climate impact database based on automated information extraction from Wikipedia

Ni Li, Wim Thiery, Shorouq Zahra, Mariana Madruga de Brito, Koffi Worou, Murathan Kurfalı, Seppe Lampe, Paul Muñoz, Clare Flynn, Camila Trigoso, Joakim Nivre, Jakob Zscheischler, and Gabriele Messori

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CFDID: a China Flood Disaster Impact Database from 1994 to 2023
Shibo Cui, Ni Li, Shiruo Hu, Zhiqi Wan, Jiaru Wang, Jinchao Tang, Ruixi Zhang, Yingjia Li, Xinpeng Yu, Yiqian Tan, Wenbo Shan, and Jianshi Zhao
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-607,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-607, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD
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Cited articles

Alencar, P. H., Sodoge, J., Paton, E., and Madruga de Brito, M.: Flash droughts and their impacts–using newspaper articles to assess the perceived consequences of rapidly emerging droughts, Environ. Res. Lett., 19, 074048, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad58fa, 2024. a
Antweiler, W.: PACIFIC Exchange Rate Service, University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business, https://fx.sauder.ubc.ca (last access: 20 May 2026), 2026. a
Begum, R. A., Lempert, R., Ali, E., Benjaminsen, T. A., Bernauer, T., Cramer, W., Cui, X., Mach, K., Nagy, G., Stenseth, N. C., Sukumar, R., and Wester, P.: Point of Departure and Key Concepts, in: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D. C., Tignor, M., Poloczanska, E. S., Mintenbeck, K., Alegría, A., Craig, M., Langsdorf, S., Löschke, S., Möller, V., Okem, A., and Rama, B., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 121–196, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009325844.003, 2022. a
Burton, C., Lampe, S., Kelley, D. I., Thiery, W., Hantson, S., Christidis, N., Gudmundsson, L., Forrest, M., Burke, E., Chang, J., Huang, H., Ito, A., Kou-Giesbrecht, S., Lasslop, G., Li, W., Nieradzik, L., Li, F., Chen, Y., Randerson, J., Reyer, C. P. O., and Mengel, M.: Global burned area increasingly explained by climate change, Nat. Clim. Change, 14, 1186–1192, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02140-w, 2024. a
DateParser contributors: Dateparser – python parser for human readable dates, GitHub Repository, https://github.com/scrapinghub/dateparser/tree/master (last access: 20 May 2026), 2024. a
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Editorial statement
This study presents a novel global database, Wikimpacts 1.0, that leverages natural language processing and automated information extraction to systematically capture multi-scale socio-economic impacts of climate extremes over nearly a millennium. By demonstrating strong accuracy and complementary coverage to established datasets, it highlights the transformative potential of AI-driven approaches to expand, refine and democratize climate impact data for research and decision-making.
Short summary

Climate extremes threaten society and ecosystems, making impact understanding critical. Wikimpacts 1.0 provides an automated pipeline processing Wikipedia texts with underexploited information on climate impacts, yielding comprehensive socio-economic impact data for 2726 climate events from 1034–2024. It offers broader storm-related impacts and finer spatial resolution than established databases, showcasing natural language processing's potential to advance climate impact data.

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