Hydrometeorological and vegetation indices for the drought monitoring system in Tuscany Region, Italy

We present here the first experiments for an integrated system that is under development for drought monitoring and water resources assessment in Tuscany Region in central Italy. The system is based on the cross-evaluation of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Vegetation Indices from remote sensing (from MODIS and SEVIRIMSG), and outputs from the distributed hydrological model MOBIDIC, that is used in real-time for water balance evaluation and hydrological forecast in the major basins of Tuscany. Furthermore, a telemetric network of aquifer levels is near completion in the region, and data from nearly 50 stations are already available in real-time. Preliminary estimates of drought indices over Tuscany in the first eight months of 2007 are shown, and pathway for further studies on the correlation between patterns of crop water stress, precipitation deficit and groundwater conditions is discussed.