摘要：Drought is a major driver of vegetation activity in Spain, withsignificant impacts on crop yield, forest growth, and the occurrence offorest fires. Nonetheless, the sensitivity of vegetation to droughtconditions differs largely amongst vegetation types and climates. We used ahigh-resolution (1.1km) spatial dataset of the normalized differencevegetation index (NDVI) for the whole of Spain spanning the period from 1981 to2015, combined with a dataset of the standardized precipitationevapotranspiration index (SPEI) to assess the sensitivity of vegetation typesto drought across Spain. Specifically, this study explores the drought timescales at which vegetation activity shows its highest response to droughtseverity at different moments of the year. Results demonstrate that – overlarge areas of Spain – vegetation activity is controlled largely by theinterannual variability of drought. More than 90% of the land areasexhibited statistically significant positive correlations between the NDVIand the SPEI during dry summers (JJA). Nevertheless, there are someconsiderable spatio-temporal variations, which can be linked to differencesin land cover and aridity conditions. In comparison to other climatic regionsacross Spain, results indicate that vegetation types located in arid regionsshowed the strongest response to drought. Importantly, this study stressesthat the timescale at which drought is assessed is a dominant factor inunderstanding the different responses of vegetation activity to drought.
