Analysis of vegetation dynamics and precipitation in Africa for drought monitoring purposes

The purpose of this study was to complete the existing ITHACA drought EWS, developed for the African continent and based on the monitoring of vegetation phenological parameters, introducing proper procedures able to monitor rainfall conditions in near real-time and detect anomalies using the SPI. The studied relationships between rainfall and vegetation dynamics allowed to determine the areas where the spatial and the temporal variability in vegetation conditions are closely related to the climate, that is, the areas where the monitoring of vegetation could be correctly integrated by the rainfall anomaly one, and, finally, the best rainfall cumulating interval to be used for SPI calculation purposes.