Crop Production System Zones (CPSZ) is the large scale spatial unit for global analysis. Sixty CPSZs are used to support global agricultural environment analysis with Environmental Indices (EI) calculated for each CPSZ in this report. The definition of CPSZ and EI are specified in CropWatch website.
Two large scale environmental anomalies accrue in 2013: the first one is an especially cold period in most of the northern hemisphere during the first half of the year and the second one is a shortage of rainfall in the southern Mediterranean, adjacent areas in central Europe and north Africa at the end of the year.

The cold spell (Figure 2-1) occurred in several waves, including in spring, when it is was most harmful to winter wheat just after dormancy. It affected large areas in Eurasia, including northwest India, parts of China, central Asia and Europe, and North America. During the second half of the year, particularly from October 2013 to January 2014, the dry weather controls large areas of the southern and northern Mediterranean, as well as adjacent countries in central Europe (Figure 2-2).
In addition to the two large-scale environmental anomalies—the cold spell and rainfall shortage—several disaster and extreme events have also affected global agriculture. Among those, most prominent were cyclones in Asia (e.g. typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines) and exceptional cold spell that impacted crops and agricultural production in the northern hemisphere (e.g. the cold weather in March and April in northeast China which led to crop structure changes from soya to corn or spring wheat). Other events included severe floods (e.g. floods in the Parana and Iguaçu rivers, which created havoc in Argentina's littoral region in June and July) and droughts (e.g. the significant drought and fires during mid-October in Australia and the most severe drought in 500 years in western United States).