Vegetation Drought Dynamics Analysis in European Russia

Abstract

This research work deals with the spatial-temporal characteristics of the relationship between drought events (Standardized Precipitation Index [SPI]), land surface temperature (LSI) and vegetation indexes (VIs) in the spring-summer (May-August) over the European Russia (ER) from 2000 to 2018. We use Terra- MODIS - NDVI and LST product and TRMM for rainfall data. Statistical results indicate that year 2004, 2009 and 2015 were the most significant changing-point in mean annual rainfall values and VIs. Results indicate that vegetation area and VIs variate according to SPI values. Analysis results also indicate that low NDVI values (0.2-0.4) shift in high NDVI values (0.5-0.8) with high SPI values and vice-versa, also high LST values associate with low VIs values and vice-versa, with correlation coefficients 0.90, means high temperature show low vegetation. A correlation analysis of VIs, SPI and LST deficit shows that vegetation is closely related to rainfall and temperature, especially under the dry and wet conditions, and indicates that the use of this correlation can be a suitable near-real time monitoring of vegetation drought dynamics. All predictions and monitoring using satellite-derived VIs is a low cost and effective means of identifying longer-term changes as opposed to natural inter-annual variability in vegetation growth.