干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Drought is among the least understood natural hazards and requires particular notice in the context of climate change. While the Mediterranean climate is by itself prone to droughts, a rise of temperatures and alteration of rainfall patterns already render the southern parts of continental Portugal and Spain highly susceptible to desertification. Precipitation in the Iberian Peninsula is mainly controlled by the large-scale mode of North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and is distributed with elevated variability over the cold months. Most drought studies of this region rely on meteorological data or apply information on vegetation dynamics, such as the Normalised Differenced Vegetation Index (NDVI), to indirectly investigate droughts. This paper evaluates the influence of the NAO winter index on the spatiotemporal occurrence of droughts in the Iberian Peninsula during the spring and summer seasons (March to August) for the years 2001-2005, 2007 and 2010. We applied the Vegetation Temperature Condition Index (VTCI) to identify local droughts. VTCI is a remote sensing drought index developed for reflecting soil moisture conditions in agricultural areas and combines information on land surface temperature (LST) and NDVI. As such, VTCI overcomes the shortcomings of NDVI in terms of drought monitoring. We derived biweekly information on LST and NDVI from MODIS/Terra and produced VTCI-NAO correlation maps at a confidence level of at least 90 % based on the VTCI time series. The results reflect a typical Mediterranean pattern in most parts of Iberia that is highly influenced by relief. Spring seasons are marked by great variability of precipitation, while summers persistently become dry, particularly in the south. NAO exerts its greatest influence in April and June, clearly delineating high correlation areas in the northwest and southeast with reverse patterns between the spring and early summer months. Due to the impact on water availability, the spring months are important for plant growth. At the same time, agricultural lands were found with types of land cover less resilient to droughts. The knowledge acquired in studies like the one reported here is therefore likely to be used in drought warning models for agriculture in spring.