Assessment of Drought Effects on Forests using Non-Parametric Methods and Satellite Imagery

Temperate forests are a vital part of the natural environment and important for human existence. Yet, they are increasingly threatened by changing disturbance regimes, especially more severe droughts. Here, we combine Landsat and Sentinel-2 time series and use a kernel density estimation (KDE) to assess the baseline phenology of a mixed forest area in Germany. We compared this baseline to the forest’s development during the drought year of 2018 and the following growing season of 2019. Our results show that parts of the examined forest were negatively impacted to an unprecedented degree. With the use of satellite remote sensing analyses and the KDE, we can assess the impact of drought on vegetation development without relying on parametric methods.