Abstract
The growing number and efficiency of earth observation satellite systems, along with the increasing reliability of remote sensing methodologies, provide a range of new capabilities in monitoring and assessing drought. For the quantitative assessment of agrometeorological or agricultural drought as well as the computation of spatiotemporal features, one of the most reliable and widely used indices is applied, namely the Vegetation Health Index (VHI). The computation of VHI is based on satellite data of temperature and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The spatiotemporal features of drought, which are extracted from VHI are: areal extent, onset and end time, duration and severity. In this paper, a 20-year (1981–2001) time series of NOAA/AVHRR satellite data is used, where monthly images of VHI are extracted. Application is implemented in Thessaly, which is the major agricultural region of Greece characterized by vulnerable and drought-prone agriculture. The results show that there are episodes of mild to moderate, as well as severe to extreme droughts, respectively. Also, there is an increase in the areal extent of each drought episode with peaks appearing usually during the summer. Finally, the areas with diachronic drought persistence can be located.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded by Pleiades, Smart and Hydrosense EC projects. The conventional meteorological data was provided by the National Meteorological Service of Greece. The precipitation maps were provided by the Joint Research Center (JRC) of EC, Ispra, Italy. The satellite data was provided by NOAA.
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Dalezios, N.R., Blanta, A., Spyropoulos, N. (2013). Remotely Sensed Spatiotemporal Features of Agrometeorological Drought. In: Helmis, C., Nastos, P. (eds) Advances in Meteorology, Climatology and Atmospheric Physics. Springer Atmospheric Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29172-2_58
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29172-2_58
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