This repository is an archive of US Secretary of Agriculture disaster
designations (2012–present) and Presidential Major Disaster declarations
(2017–present). County-level disaster data are acquired weekly from the
USDA
Disaster Designation portal. The raw data are archived in the
data-raw
directory.
The fsa-disasters.R script handles all data
download and processing. The script begins by downloading all USDA
disaster designation spreadsheets from the official site, fixing broken
links and organizing them by year. It then reads these files and
combines them into one dataset, standardizing column names and formats
so the information is consistent across years. Dates are converted to
proper formats, and designation codes are normalized. The data is
cleaned to remove errors and reorganized so each disaster type and
affected county is clearly represented. Finally, the consolidated
dataset is saved in both CSV and Parquet formats for easy analysis.
About USDA Secretarial Disaster Designations
USDA Secretarial Disaster Designations identify counties impacted by natural disasters such as drought, flooding, or wildfire. These designations enable producers in affected areas to access emergency loans and other assistance programs through the Farm Service Agency (FSA).
Designations are based on:
- Production losses (generally 30% or more)
- Physical losses (e.g., infrastructure damage)
- Recommendations from state and local officials
About Presidential Major Disaster Declarations
Presidential Major Disaster Declarations are issued under the Stafford Act and authorize federal assistance for communities affected by severe disasters. These declarations:
- Provide access to FEMA programs for individuals and public infrastructure
- Often complement USDA disaster programs for agricultural producers
- Are based on severity, scope, and state requests for federal aid
FEMA maintains a database of Major Disaster declarations as part of the OpenFEMA data portal. Additionally, the USDA Farm Service Agency also provides access to Presidential Major Disaster declarations.
🗂 Directory Structure
fsa-disasters.R: R script that updates secretarial and presidential disaster data based on files posted by the FSA.fsa-disasters.parquet: Consolidated disaster data in a single parquet file.fsa-disasters.csv: Consolidated disaster data in a single comma-separated values file.- data-raw/: Directory containing raw disaster data files as posted by the FSA.
README.Rmd: This README file, providing an overview and usage instructions.
📍 Quick Start: Visualize the 2025 Secretarial Disaster Designations for Drought in R
This snippet shows how to load a the parquet file from the archive and
create a thematic map using sf and ggplot2.
# Load required libraries
library(arrow)
library(sf)
library(ggplot2) # For plotting
library(tigris) # For state boundaries
library(rmapshaper) # For innerlines function
# Get the 2025 Secretarial disasters for drought
disasters <-
# "https://sustainable-fsa.com/fsa-disasters/fsa-disasters.parquet" |>
"fsa-disasters.parquet" |>
arrow::read_parquet() |>
dplyr::filter(`Designation/Declaration Type` == "Secretarial",
stringr::str_detect(`Disaster Type`, "DROUGHT"),
`Begin Date` >= "2025-01-01",
(`End Date` < "2026-01-01") | is.na(`End Date`)) |>
dplyr::arrange(`Designation Code`) %>%
dplyr::distinct(FIPS, .keep_all = TRUE)
## Load the US Census county data
counties <-
tigris::counties(cb = TRUE,
year = 2020,
resolution = "5m") |>
dplyr::filter(!(STATEFP %in% c("60", "66", "69", "78"))) |>
# transform to WGS 84
sf::st_transform("EPSG:4326") |>
sf::st_cast("POLYGON", warn = FALSE, do_split = TRUE) |>
tigris::shift_geometry() |>
dplyr::group_by(STATEFP, COUNTYFP) |>
dplyr::summarise(.groups = "drop") |>
sf::st_cast("MULTIPOLYGON") |>
dplyr::mutate(FIPS = paste0(STATEFP, COUNTYFP))
## | | | 0% | | | 1% | |= | 1% | |= | 2% | |== | 2% | |== | 3% | |=== | 4% | |=== | 5% | |==== | 5% | |==== | 6% | |===== | 7% | |====== | 8% | |====== | 9% | |======= | 10% | |======= | 11% | |======== | 11% | |======== | 12% | |========= | 12% | |========= | 13% | |========= | 14% | |========== | 14% | |========== | 15% | |=========== | 15% | |=========== | 16% | |============ | 17% | |============ | 18% | |============= | 18% | |============= | 19% | |============== | 19% | |============== | 20% | |============== | 21% | |=============== | 21% | |=============== | 22% | |================ | 22% | |================ | 23% | |================= | 24% | |================= | 25% | |================== | 25% | |================== | 26% | |=================== | 27% | |=================== | 28% | |==================== | 28% | |==================== | 29% | |===================== | 30% | |===================== | 31% | |====================== | 31% | |====================== | 32% | 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|===================================================================== | 99% | |======================================================================| 100%
disasters_counties <-
disasters |>
dplyr::left_join(counties) |>
sf::st_as_sf()
# Plot the map
ggplot(counties) +
geom_sf(data = sf::st_union(counties),
fill = "grey80",
color = NA) +
geom_sf(data = disasters_counties,
aes(fill = `Designation Code`),
color = NA) +
geom_sf(data = rmapshaper::ms_innerlines(counties),
fill = NA,
color = "white",
linewidth = 0.1) +
geom_sf(data = counties |>
dplyr::group_by(STATEFP) |>
dplyr::summarise() |>
rmapshaper::ms_innerlines(),
fill = NA,
color = "white",
linewidth = 0.2) +
scale_fill_manual(
values = c(
"Primary" = "#DC0005",
"Contiguous" = "#FD9A09"
),
na.value = NA,
drop = FALSE,
na.translate = FALSE,
name = "Designation Code") +
labs(title = "2025 USDA Secretarial Disaster Designations for Drought",
subtitle = format(lubridate::today(), "%B %d, %Y")) +
theme_void()
📝 Citation & Attribution
Citation format (suggested):
R. Kyle Bocinsky YYYY. Archive of USDA Secretarial Disaster Designations and Presidential Major Disaster Declarations. Data processed, curated, and archived by R. Kyle Bocinsky, Montana Climate Office. Accessed via GitHub archive, YYYY-MM-DD. https://sustainable-fsa.com/fsa-disasters/
Acknowledgments:
- Data sources: USDA Farm Service Agency
- Data curation and archival structure by R. Kyle Bocinsky, Montana Climate Office, University of Montana.
📄 License
- Raw data: Public Domain (17 USC § 105)
- Processed data & scripts: © R. Kyle Bocinsky, released under CC0 and MIT License as applicable
⚠️ Disclaimer
This dataset is archived for research and educational use only.
👏 Acknowledgment
This project is part of:
Enhancing Sustainable Disaster Relief in FSA
Programs
Supported by USDA OCE/OEEP and USDA Climate Hubs
Prepared by the Montana Climate Office
📬 Contact
R. Kyle Bocinsky
Director of Climate Extension
Montana Climate Office
📧 kyle.bocinsky@umontana.edu
🌐 https://climate.umt.edu