Supplemental Materials: Random Forest Climatic Modeling of Agricultural Insurance Loss Across the Inland Pacific Northwest Region of the United States

Submitted to Environmental Data Science 2022

Erich Seamon, Paul E. Gessler, John T. Abatzoglou, Philip W. Mote, Stephen S. Lee

October 2022

Overview:

The following analyses examine agricultural commodity loss, at a county level, from 2001-2015, across the 24 county region of the Inland Pacific Northwest (IPNW). In this analysis, we use a time lagged matrix approach to examine a range of combinations of climate and insurance loss for wheat due to drought.

Data Access Summary:

Data provided include climate correlations, climate matrices, climatological data taken from Abatzoglou's (2013) GRIDMET daily downscaled climate data, as well as wheat commodity pricing data at a county level.

User should only need to download the attached zip file, decompress, and then run the Rmd from the location of data download. The Rmd contains code to expand any zip files, and load data needed to re-generate the Rmd output (which is included as an html file).

Description of the Data and file structure:

All data is found within the /data folder.

/RMA_originaldata: Original .txt files for insurance loss claims, by year, for the entire United States.

• Contains a .csv and a .txt file. Both files contain the same data but in differing formats.

  • RMA_originaldata_csv.zip
  • RMA_originaldata_txt.zip
  • Each .Zip file contains yearly .csv files of insurance loss for the US, (1989 to 2015). Example: 1989.csv

/climate_correlation_summaries. Climate correlation summary data.

• Each .csv represents a summary of climate correlation values generated from the model output. Each .csv is in the following format:

  • <state><county><crop><damagecause><loss_transformation>.csv

  Example: ID_Benewah_WHEAT_Drought_acres_loss.csv

/climate_matrices. Climate correlation matrices between individual climate variables and wheat/drought insurance loss.

• Each .csv represents a matrix of climate correlational values in the following format:

  • <state><county><crop><damagecause><month>_month preceding.csv

  Example: ID_Benewah_WHEAT_Drought_mar6.csv

  Column descriptions:

  • bi: burning index (index)
  • pr: precipitation (millimeters)
  • th: wind direction (degrees clockwise from north)
  • pdsi: palmer drought severity index (index ranging from -4 to 4)
  • pet: potential evapotranspiration (millimeters)
  • erc: energy release component (index)
  • rmin: relative minimum humidity (percentage 0 to 100)
  • rmax: relative maximum humidity (percentage 0 to 100)
  • tmmn: minimum temperature (kelvin)
  • tmmx: maximum temperature (kelvin)
  • srad: solar radiation (kWh/m2)
  • sph: specific humidity (kg/kg)
  • vs: wind velocity at 10m (meters/sec)
  • fm1000: 1000 hour fuel moisture (percentage)
  • fm100: 100 hour fuel moisture (percentage)

/climate_outputs. Climate pyramid values by county.

• Each .csv is in the following format:

  • <loss_value>_climatecorrelation.csv

  Example: tmmx_jan1_cube_root_loss_climatecorrelations.csv

  Climate variable acroyms:

  • tmmx = maximum temperature (kelvin)
  • fm100 = 100 hour fuel moisture (percentage)
  • pdsi = palmer drought severity index (index ranging between -4 and 4)
  • pet = potential evapotranspiration (millimeters)
  • pr = precipitation (millimeters)

  Column descriptions:

  • climate variable: (climate variable descriptions and units listed under /climate_matrices)
  • loss: insurance loss. Transformed value is indicated in title of csv (e.g.. cube root loss)
  • year: e.g. 1989
  • state: e.g. Idaho
  • county: e.g. Benewah
  • commodity: crop commodity (e.g. WHEAT)
  • matrixnumber: time window (e.g. jan6 = six months previous and including january)
  • clim_zscore: normalized climate value for associated time window
  • loss_zscore: normalized insurance loss value for associated time window

/climatology. Base climatology for the iPNW.

• Contains .csv files that represent climatological base values, at a monthly, county level, for all years from 1989 to 2015. Each file is structured in the following format:

  • __ipnw_summary. Example: Idaho_1989_ipnw_summary

  Column descriptions:

  • bi: burning index (index)
  • pr: precipitation (millimeters)
  • th: wind direction (degrees clockwise from north)
  • pdsi: palmer drought severity index (index ranging from -4 to 4)
  • pet: potential evapotranspiration (millimeters)
  • erc: energy release component (index)
  • rmin: relative minimum humidity (percentage 0 to 100)
  • rmax: relative maximum humidity (percentage 0 to 100)
  • tmmn: minimum temperature (kelvin)
  • tmmx: maximum temperature (kelvin)
  • srad: solar radiation (kWh/m2)
  • sph: specific humidity (kg/kg)
  • vs: wind velocity at 10m (meters/sec)
  • fm1000: 1000 hour fuel moisture (percentage)
  • fm100: 100 hour fuel moisture (percentage)
  • countyfips: county fips value
  • month: e.g. Jan
  • year: e.g. 1989

/counties. County shapefiles.

• Contains one file in the following formats:

  • threestate_palouse.zip. Zip file which expands into a shapefile of the inland Pacific Northwest palouse agricultural counties.

/states. State shapefiles.

• Contains two files:

  • states_conus.zip. .Zip file which expands into state boundary shapefile.
  • threestate_boundary.zip. .Zip file which expands into shape file for just the three states of Idaho, Washington, and Idaho.

/wheat_prices. Annual wheat prices.

• Contains two files:

  • wheat_prices_1989_2015.csv. Wheat prices from 1989 to 2015
  • wheat_prices_monthly_1998_2017.csv. Monthly wheat prices from 1998 to 2015.