ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Drought, a phenomenon that has a strong impact on natural ecosystems, is a main topic for land management and policy making. The effects of drought on forests have received less attention than in agricultural systems as are not as well understood yet. Drought can have harmful effects on forests regarding occurrence of fire episodes or deterioration of ecosystem services. Thus, understanding spatio-temporal drought patterns is a key input in forest-related management. Monthly Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index was computed for Spain to identify climate anomalies which may become droughts. However, climate-based patterns did not entirely explain the real state of vegetation; therefore, vegetation indices derived from MODIS sensor were calculated as indicative of physiological forest parameters. An exploratory analysis was conducted based on time-series of climatic and MODIS data. Results showed the capability of the methodology to identify and characterize drought patterns on forests and its potentiality for the identification of vulnerable areas.
