Alpine forest drought monitoring in South Tyrol: PCA based synergy between scPDSI data and MODIS derived NDVI and NDII7 time series

Observed alternation of global and local meteorological patterns governs increasing drought impact, which puts at risk ecological balance and biodiversity of the alpine forest. Despite considerable attention, drought impact on forest ecosystems is still not entirely understood, and comprehensive forest drought monitoring has not been implemented. In this study, we proposed to bridge this gap exploiting a time-domain synergetic use of medium resolution MODSI NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and NDII7 (Normalized Difference Infrared Index band 7) time series as well as on-station temperature and precipitation measures combined in the scPDSI (self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index) datasets. Analysis employed the S-mode Principal Component Analysis (PCA) examined under multiple method settings and data setups. The investigation performed for South Tyrol (2001–2012) indicated prolonged meteorological drought condition between 2003 and 2007, as well as general drying tendencies. Corresponding temporal variability was identified for local mountain forest. The former response was fostered more often by NDII7, which is related to foliage water content, whereas NDVI was more prone to report on an overall downturn and implied drop in forest photosynthetic activity. Among tested approaches, the covariance-matrix based S-mode PCA of z-score normalized vegetation season NDVI and NDII7 time series ensured the most prominent identification of drought impact. Consistency in recognized temporal patterns confirms integrity of the approach and aptness of used remote-sensed datasets, suggesting great potential for drought oriented environmental analyses.