Monitoring Vegetation Drought Stress
Vegetation health is closely tied to water availability. When water is scarce, plants exhibit signs of stress that can impact ecosystems, agriculture, and wildfire risk. By analyzing satellite data, scientists can assess vegetation conditions over time, providing valuable insights for land managers, farmers, and decision-makers.
VegDRI
VegDRI
The VegDRI is a hybrid drought index that incorporates multiple sources of input data informative of drought stress.
QuickDRI
QuickDRI
Similar in methodology to VegDRI, QuickDRI is a hybrid drought index that incorporates multiple sources of input data informative of drought or rapidly drying conditions.
Drought Monitor Resources
Drought Monitor Resources
Here are web resources that provide information about drought monitoring using remote sensing. This list is not all inclusive.
News
MIrAD Version 4 (250-Meter Resolution and 1-Kilometer Resolution) Dataset Released
MIrAD Version 4 (250-Meter Resolution and 1-Kilometer Resolution) Dataset Released
QuickDRI, VegDRI Showed Their Value in Montana Drought of 2017
QuickDRI, VegDRI Showed Their Value in Montana Drought of 2017
Publications
Exploring the regional dynamics of U.S. irrigated agriculture from 2002 to 2017
The United States has a geographically mature and stable land use and land cover system including land used as irrigated cropland; however, changes in irrigation land use frequently occur related to various drivers. We applied a consistent methodology at a 250 m spatial resolution across the lower 48 states to map and estimate irrigation dynamics for four map eras (2002, 2007, 2012, and...
Exploring VIIRS continuity with MODIS in an expedited capability for monitoring drought-related vegetation conditions
Vegetation has been effectively monitored using remote sensing time-series vegetation index (VI) data for several decades. Drought monitoring has been a common application with algorithms tuned to capturing anomalous temporal and spatial vegetation patterns. Drought stress models, such as the Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI), often use VIs like the Normalized Difference...
Assessing the evolution of soil moisture and vegetation conditions during the 2012 United States flash drought
This study examines the evolution of several model-based and satellite-derived drought metrics sensitive to soil moisture and vegetation conditions during the extreme flash drought event that impacted major agricultural areas across the central U.S. during 2012. Standardized anomalies from the remote sensing based Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) and Vegetation Drought Response Index...
Science
MODIS Irrigated Agriculture
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Irrigated Agriculture Dataset for the United States (MIrAD-US)
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Irrigated Agriculture Dataset for the United States (MIrAD-US)
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Irrigated Agriculture Dataset for the United States (MIrAD-US) suite of irrigation products was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. The goal of MIrAD is to provide a comprehensive and consistently processed geospatial dataset for irrigated agriculture across the conterminous...
Drought Monitoring Datasets Available as OGC Web Map Services (WMS)
Web Services The Drought Monitoring datasets are available as OGC Web Map Services (WMS). You can access the services using the below links.