The effective water balance is the difference between water supply and potential evapotranspiration during the main vegetation period (May-August). The water supply consists of the precipitation during this period, the amount of water present in the soil (described by the usable field capacity in the effective rooting zone) and possibly a capillary rise. The capillary rise is the result of the ascent rate per day and the culture-dependent duration of the ascent. The rate of ascent depends essentially on the soil texture and the distance of the lower limit of the effective rooting zone to the groundwater or backwater body. The landuse stratified soil map of Germany at scale 1:1,000,000 (BUEK1000N) was used as pedological input to the model. The landuse information was derived from CORINE land cover data set (CLC2006). The climate scenario data (https://www.dwd.de/ref-ensemble) was provided by the German Meteorological Service (DWD) in a resolution of 5 x 5 km. It contains 16 bias-corrected datasets (combination of global and regional climate models), which describe the scenario RCP8.5 (RCPs Representative Concentration Pathways) assuming an additional radiation of 8,5 W/m². The nine raster datasets with a resolution of 5 x 5 km represent the mean, the 15th and 85th percentile of the effective water balance during the main vegetation period in Germany for the climate periods 1971-2000, 2031-2060 and 2071-2099.