With a vast territory, diverse climatic types, fragile ecosystems and varied types of disasters, China is a country that suffered from the most serious natural disasters in the world. Agricultural disasters constitute the main natural disasters in China, mainly including flood, drought, low temperature, hail, and typhoon, with flood and drought being the most prominent.1–3 In June and July 2017, 11 provinces in southern China suffered from floods, which affected more than 11 million people, including 78 people who died or disappeared and 27 thousand houses that collapsed. Direct economic losses reached 25.27 billion yuan, leading to a government supply of up to 1.88 billion yuan for disaster relief. Research on the temporal-spatial laws, driving mechanism, risk assessment, regional regularity, and control measures of natural disasters needs the support of historical disaster datasets.3–4 Here we sorted, summarized and evaluated the data of major meteorological disasters in China at provincial level from 1949 to 2015, as well as the data of grain losses caused by these disasters.
Firstly, we summarized mildly-, moderately-, and heavily-affected area, as well as total affected area by meteorological disasters from 1949 to 2015 (i.e., flood, drought, low temperature, hail, typhoon). Secondly, based on the crop planting dataset, we estimated grain losses caused by these disasters at provincial level by means of grain loss assessment model. The dataset, which includes information on agro-meteorological disasters and grain losses, can provide a scientific basis for investigating the spatiotemporal pattern of agro-meteorological disasters.