Drought footprint on European ecosystems between 1999 and 2010 assessed by remotely sensed vegetation phenology and productivity.

Drought affects more people than any other natural disaster but there is little understanding of how ecosystems react to droughts. This study jointly analyzed spatio-temporal changes of drought patterns with vegetation phenology and productivity changes between 1999 and 2010 in major European bioclimatic zones. The Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) was used as drought indicator whereas changes in growing season length and vegetation productivity were assessed using remote sensing time-series of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).