The contribution of remote sensing to the assessment of drought effects in forest ecosystems

Due to their synoptic and monitoring capacities, Earth observation satellites could prove useful for the assessment and evaluation of drought effects in forest ecosystems. The objectives of this article are: to briefly review the existing sources of remote sensing data and their potential to detect drought damage; to review the remote sensing applications and studies carried out during the last two decades aiming at detecting and quantifying disturbances caused by various stress factors, and especially those causing effects similar to drought; to explore the possibility to use some of the different available systems for setting up a strategy more adapted to monitoring of drought effects in forests.