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Drought Monitoring at high resolution throughout Italy

The DPC currently uses coarse resolution maps to assess seasonal conditions with a moderated reliability of human activities impact on measured areas. The OEMC project will produce 1km drought maps on a monthly basis exploiting soil moisture, vegetation and precipitation data obtained from the integration of satellite, modeled, and ground-based observations. Changing to high resolution is expected to improve the system and to open new opportunities that will allow to include the human component in the drought assessment, with a significantly better reliability.

What is the challenge?

Current drought monitoring systems lack the necessary spatial resolution for accurate local assessments, particularly in areas with significant human influence. Additionally, there is a lack of standardization among remote sensing products, making it difficult to combine and compare data, and many existing data products are not easily accessible or ready to use for various stakeholders. A further challenge lies in translating scientific knowledge into practical tools for decision-makers and other users.

Our solution

This use case will deliver a high-resolution (1km) drought monitoring product specifically for Italy on a monthly basis. This involves integrating data from multiple sources such as satellite observations, models, and ground-based measurements to provide a comprehensive assessment of drought conditions. The project also compares different remote sensing products to improve accuracy and reliability, and the outputs are designed to be open, accessible, and standardized for a variety of applications. The project is also working to make the data easily available through the Open Earth Monitor app.

Graphical abstract of Brocca et al., 2024

Who will benefit?

Civil protection agencies, agricultural and environmental agencies, researchers, municipalities, insurance companies, water resource management organizations such as the European and global drought observatories, the National Department of Civil Protection (DPC), stakeholders, policymakers, media and the public will all benefit from this use case.