Service for monitoring drought conditions in the Baltic Sea Drainage Basin—A case study in Poland using FPCUP Open Data Framework

A system for monitoring crop growth conditions has been developed at the Remote Sensing Centre, Institute of Geodesy and Cartography. It determines crop conditions with the use of an index based on Copernicus data resampled to a 1 km2 spatial resolution. The index, called the Drought Identification Satellite System (DISS), is a function of the Temperature Condition Index (TCI) and meteorological index, characterizing climatic conditions on the territory of Poland, i.e., the hydrothermal coefficient (HTC). The DISS drought index is generated within a successive ten-day period during a vegetation season, starting from the end of March. The median of the HTC informs us about the average atmospheric conditions (in relation to precipitation and air temperature). These images refer to the growing season (from the end of April to September) and are formed with 10-day-step process. The spatial distribution of HTC median values in Poland is related to climatic conditions, which are influenced by Poland’s topography. The daily values of soil moisture are input into the system using Sentinel1 with the polarization VH and VV. The vegetation descriptor is related to VH−VV, and the soil moisture is related to the index σ° VV/VH.