A High Resolution Dataset of Drought Indices for Spain

Abstract

Drought indices are essential metrics for quantifying drought severity and identifying possible changes in the frequency and duration of drought hazards. In this study, we developed a new high spatial resolution dataset of drought indices covering all of Spain. The dataset includes seven drought indices, spans the period 1961–2014, and has a spatial resolution of 1.1 km and a weekly temporal resolution. A web portal has been created to enable download and visualization of the data. The data can be downloaded as single gridded points for each drought index, but the entire drought index dataset can also be downloaded in netCDF4 format. The dataset will be updated for complete years as the raw meteorological data become available.

Keywords

• Gridded data
• Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)
• Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
• Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)