Assessment of Spatiotemporal Characteristic of Droughts Using <i>In Situ</i> and Remote Sensing-Based Drought Indices

Drought has been identified as one of the significant complicated natural disasters exacerbated by land degradation and climate change. Hence, monitoring drought evaluating its spatiotemporal dynamics are essential to manage regional conditions protecting environment. In this study, various single remote sensing-based indices including soil moisture condition index (SMCI), precipitation (PCI), temperature (TCI), vegetation (VCI) combined RS-based Indices optimized meteorological (OMDI) synthesized (SDI) have used investigate variations agricultural droughts between 2000 2021 in Iran. The in situ indices, standardized (SPI) evapotranspiration (SPEI) series 1, 3, 6, 12, 24 months were utilized verify evaluate their applicability for analyzing conditions. results indicated that correlation coefficients with higher than indexes. Generally, single-factor indexes, VCI, TCI, PCI, SMCI, specific characteristics. PCI SMCI an acceptable short-term SPI SPEI more applicable Further, TCI better performance long-term This research concluded central, eastern, southeastern parts Iran mainly experiencing exceptional extreme worst observed years 2008 region during last 20 years. also showed that, 2019 2020, most areas had OMDI SDI values severity decreased these Particularly, provides reference reasonably choosing from a local global scale.