POTENTIAL OF MERIS fAPAR FOR DROUGHT DETECTION

This work evaluates the potential for drought detection of the Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fAPAR) estimations operationally produced by the European Space Agency (ESA) as the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MERIS) Level 2 Land Product. MERIS fAPAR daily data were used to produce 10-day time composites. The selected study area was the Iberia Peninsula. Seasonal anomalies were calculated for the fAPAR dataset as well as for those of other drought indicators from different sources, such as the Standardized Precipitation Index, a widely used drought index, or the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The resulting time series of anomaly maps of different drought indicators were then compared to assess the correlation among them and their ability to detect recent drought events in the area. Results show that MERIS fAPAR has a capacity to detect droughts and offers an enhanced performance compared to NDVI.