Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano

• PhD. in Geography
• Researcher at Spanish National Research Council

Aridification threatens over 2.3 billion people by reshaping landscapes and increasing socio-economic vulnerabilities, demanding immediate policy actions and global cooperation to enhance resilience and develop transformative solutions.

The analysis of temporal changes in extreme event attributes, specifically magnitude and frequency, is hindered by the rarity and exceptional nature of the events being studied. The non-stationary extreme value theory (NSEVT) provides a well-established framework for assessing how extreme event probabilities vary as a function of one or more covari...

State-of-the-art climate models project a substantial decline in precipitation for the Mediterranean region in the future¹. Supporting this notion, several studies based on observed precipitation data spanning recent decades have suggested a decrease in Mediterranean precipitation2, 3–4, with some attributing a large fraction of this change to anth...

We evaluate different methodological choices for seasonal drought prediction over the Mediterranean region with the multi-dimensional Standardised Evapotranspiration Precipitation Index accumulated over a 3-month time-scale (SPEI-3), based on the ECMWF SEAS5.1 operational prediction system. We analyse two strategies for constructing the index backf...

Climate aridity (the long‐term balance between water availability through precipitation and the atmospheric evaporative demand) has a fundamental role in determining water availability and the geographic distribution of ecosystems and agricultural regions, and plays a crucial role in shaping ecological transitions under current climate change. We c...

This study analyses the evolution of annual streamflow across Europe between 1962 and 2017, focusing on the connection of streamflow trends with climate dynamics and physiographic and land cover characteristics and changes. The spatial pattern of trends in streamflow shows strong agreement with the spatial patterns of climate trends, suggesting a c...

This article presents an analysis of the response of the annual yield of rainfed maize crops in the Argentine Pampas Region to five drought indices (standardized precipitation index [SPI], standardized soil moisture index [SSMI], standardized evapotranspiration deficit index [SEDI], standardized precipitation‐evapotranspiration index [SPEI], and st...

Aridity is an average long-term condition characterised by low precipitation and high atmospheric evaporative demand. Aridity significantly affects land degradation, desertification and the overall resilience of ecosystems-as a result, understanding aridity and its consequences for ecosystems and societies is critical in today's changing climate. A...

Understanding aridity and its consequences for ecosystems and societies is critical in today’s changing climate. Aridity—the relative, long-term lack of available, life-sustaining moisture in terrestrial climates—significantly affects land degradation, desertification and the overall resilience of ecosystems and human communities. Aridity-related l...

The Euromediterranean area is a key region in which the link between atmospheric moisture transport and hydrometeorological extremes concerns. Atmospheric rivers, the main moisture transport mechanism affecting the region, play a notable role in extreme precipitation there. Moreover, moisture transport deficits from two of the major oceanic moistur...

Drought is one of the most damaging hydroclimatic hazards, impacting environmental systems and socioeconomic sectors. Therefore, understanding the physical mechanisms that cause drought events is of critical importance. Here we investigate the influence of oceanic and continental moisture deficits on global meteorological drought events in recent d...

Flash droughts (FDs) are distinguished by a rapid development associated with strong precipitation deficits and/or increases in atmospheric evaporative demand in the short‐term, but little is known about the atmospheric conditions underlying these events. In this study, we analyse for the first time the atmospheric dynamics involved in the developm...

This study analyzes the relationship between drought processes and crop yields in Moldova, together with the effects of possible future climate change on crops. The severity of drought is analyzed over time in Moldova using the Standard Precipitation Index, the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, and their relationship with crop yi...

Better understanding how fires respond to climate variability is an issue of current interest in light of ongoing climate change. However, evaluating the global‐scale temporal variability of fires in response to climate presents a challenge due to the intricate processes at play and the limitation of fire data. Here, we investigate the links betwee...

We leveraged the most extensive and detailed gridded database of monthly precipitation data across the Spanish mainland (MOPREDAScentury), encompassing 1916–2020 time period, to pinpoint the most severe drought events within this timeframe and analyse their spatio-temporal dynamics. To identify these events, we employed the Standardized Precipitati...

In this article, we focus on studying the nexus between moisture transport deficit and drought occurrence in nine key regions across the world where the magnitude of meteorological drought is projected to increase from 1850 to 2100 under a high anthropogenic emission scenario. These regions are central America, southwestern South America, northern...

The dynamics of the mountain vegetation is governed by multiple climatic drivers including temperature, precipitation, radiation and snow cover variability. However, in the Mediterranean environment, little is known about the relative importance of each variable. In this study we assess how different snowpack indices (the maximum annual accumulatio...

Given the inevitable exacerbation of droughts in the Mediterranean region, a better understanding and monitoring of drought occurrences is imperative for mitigating their adverse effects, and for improving water resource management both locally and regionally. Currently, operational drought monitoring employs a set of drought indices designed to as...

This study provides a global analysis of the relationship between drought metrics obtained from several climatic, hydrologic and ecological variables in a climate change framework using CMIP6 model data. A comprehensive analysis of the evolution of drought severity on a global scale is carried out for the historical experiment (1850–2014) and for f...

En este estudio se analiza espacialmente la fenología vegetal y sus variaciones a lo largo del tiempo en la España peninsular e Islas Baleares. Para realizar el análisis se ha generado una serie temporal de casi 40 años (1983-2020) a partir de la fusión de valores del índice de vegetación NDVI de imágenes de satélite procedentes de los sensores NOA...

The purpose of this research is to identify changes in the spatiotemporal distribution and severity of meteorological droughts in Ukraine between 1946 and 2020. In order to determine the role of precipitation and atmospheric evaporative demand on drought severity, two drought indices were applied for comparative analysis: the standardized precipita...

Drought is one of the most catastrophic natural hazards, and precipitation plays a major role in the development and intensification of drought events. The amount of precipitation resulting from humidity transported from a given moisture source can be key in revealing the origin of the atmospheric moisture deficit underlying drought occurrence. Her...

Droughts are among the most complex and devastating natural hazards globally. High-resolution datasets of drought metrics are essential for monitoring and quantifying the severity, duration, frequency, and spatial extent of droughts at regional and particularly local scales. However, current global drought indices are available only at a coarser sp...

Understanding how Mediterranean forests respond to the increasing frequency of extreme droughts and forest densification is crucial for effective land management in the present context of climate change and land abandonment. We study the responses of Iberian holm oak (Quercus ilex L.) woodlands to recent extreme droughts during 2000-2019 along broa...

This study assessed the projected near‐surface wind speed (SWS) changes and variability over the Iberian Peninsula for the 21st century. Here, we compared Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 global climate models (GCMs) with a higher spatial resolution regional climate model (RCM; ∼20 km), known as WRF‐CESM2, which was created by a dynami...

This study analyzes the long‐term observed changes of mean (Tmean), maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) air temperatures, relative humidity (RH) and vapour pressure deficit (VPD) at different elevation ranges across Bolivia from 1950 to 2019. The linear trends in air temperature series present a significant increase, with no substantial seasonal or s...

Europe has experienced severe drought events in recent decades, posing challenges to understand vegetation responses due to diverse vegetation distribution, varying growth stages, different drought characteristics, and concurrent hydroclimatic factors. To analyze vegetation response to meteorological drought, we employed multiple vegetation indicat...

Droughts are among the most complex and devastating natural hazards globally. High-resolution datasets of drought metrics are essential for monitoring and quantifying the severity, duration, frequency and spatial extent of droughts at regional and particularly local scales. However, current global drought indices are available only at a coarser spa...

In 1639, the German naturalist Georg Marcgraf established the first astronomical observatory in the Americas, located in Recife (Brazil). There, he made the first daily systematic meteorological observations of wind direction, precipitation, fog, and thunder and lightning from 1640 to 1642. We outline the circumstances that led to this observatory...

Europe has experienced severe drought events in recent decades, with the diverse distribution of vegetation, varied drought characteristics, and other concurrent hydroclimatic factors making it challenging to understand how vegetation responds to drought. To shed light on this issue, we use an ensemble of vegetation growth indicators to analyze the...

This research presents a case study of the biases and discontinuities that were introduced in observed long-term mean wind-speed and gust data-series due to anemometer changes in a meteorological station in northern Spain, operated by the Spanish State Meteorological Agency: San Sebastian-Igueldo. Field and wind-tunnel experiments with predefined c...

This study provides a global analysis of drought metrics obtained from several climatic, hydrologic and ecological variables in a climate change framework using CMIP6 model data. A comprehensive analysis of the evolution of drought severity on a global scale is carried out for the historical experiment (1850-2014) and for future simulations under a...

Journal website link: www.frontiersin.org

Unlabelled: The 2018-2019 Central European drought was probably the most extreme in Germany since the early sixteenth century. We assess the multiple consequences of the drought for natural systems, the economy and human health in the German part of the Elbe River basin, an area of 97,175 km2 including the cities of Berlin and Hamburg and contribu...

Near-surface wind speed (SWS) has been the forgotten part of the climate system due to poor quality of observational data and the challenges in its homogenization. During the last two decades, the scientific community discovered two unexpected phenomena related to changes in SWS. The first one, termed “stilling”, consists in a decrease of SWS. The...

River discharge has experienced diverse changes in the last decades due to modification of hydrological patterns, anthropogenic intervention, re‐vegetation or annual and interannual climatic and atmospheric fluctuations. Assessing the recent changes in river discharge and understanding the main drivers of these changes is thus extremely important f...

Extreme weather events are expected to increase due to climate change, which could pose an additional burden of morbidity and mortality. In recent decades, drought severity has increased in several regions around the world, affecting health by increasing the risk of water-, food-, and vector-borne diseases, malnutrition, cardiovascular and respirat...

This research presents a case study of the biases and discontinuities that were introduced in observed long-term mean wind-speed and gust data-series due to anemometer changes in a meteorological station in northern Spain, operated by the Spanish State Meteorological Agency: San Sebastian-Igueldo. Field and wind-tunnel experiments with predefined c...

Using observations and model simulations from the 5th and 6th phases of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5 and CMIP6, respectively), this study evaluated changes in monthly, seasonal, and annual precipitation over Bolivia from 1950 to 2019. Results demonstrate that observed precipitation is characterized by strong interannual and deca...

Drought is one of the most difficult natural hazards to quantify and is divided into categories (meteorological, agricultural, ecological and hydrological), which makes assessing recent changes and future scenarios extremely difficult. This opinion piece includes a review of the recent scientific literature on the topic and analyses trends in meteo...

Water managers and researchers noted with concern a nearly generalized decline in Mediterranean rivers discharge over the last decades. Changes in climatic forces (precipitation and air temperature) and land use and land cover (LULC) changes characterized by re-vegetation and greenness are the two most possible explanations for this discharge decli...

Drought monitoring systems are real‐time information systems focused on drought severity data. They are useful for determining the drought onset and development and defining the spatial extent of drought at any time. Effective drought monitoring requires databases with high spatial and temporal resolution and large spatial and temporal coverage. Re...

Flash droughts are characterized by rapid development and intensification, generating a new risk for drought impacts on natural and socio‐economic systems. In the current climate change scenario, the meteorological drivers involved in triggering flash droughts are uncertain. We analyzed the role of meteorological drivers underlying the development...

As CO2 concentration in the atmosphere rises, there is a need for improved physical understanding of its impact on global plant transpiration. This knowledge gap poses a major hurdle in robustly projecting changes in the global hydrologic cycle. For this reason, here we review the different processes by which atmospheric CO2 concentration affects p...

Over the past decades, droughts and heatwaves frequently appeared in Western Europe (45°–65°N, 10°W–20°E) during boreal summer, causing huge impacts on human society and ecosystems. Although these extremes are projected to increase in both frequency and intensity under a warming climate, our knowledge of their interdecadal variations and causes is...

Drought monitoring is essential to determine, at short time intervals, the main characteristics of drought events, such as their duration, severity, and spatial distribution. To ensure that drought monitoring represents a useful tool for governmental plans aimed at preventing or minimizing drought impacts, up-to-date information must be instantaneo...

Background Equatorward, rear-edge tree populations are natural monitors to estimate species vulnerability to climate change. According to biogeographical theory, exposition to drought events increases with increasing aridity towards the equator and the growth of southern tree populations will be more vulnerable to drought than in central population...

Climate variability can be the source of several multiple hazards and damaging phenomena, such as flash floods, debris flows, landslides, forest fires, etc. In this study the response in the frequency of landslides, floods and forest fires to a set of climate indices is studied, referring to a region of southern Italy (Calabria) located in the cent...

Remote sensing satellite images in the optical domain often contain missing or misleading data due to overcast conditions or sensor malfunctioning, concealing potentially important information. In this paper, we apply expectation maximization (EM) Tucker to NDVI satellite data from the Iberian Peninsula in order to gap-fill missing information. EM...

This chapter assesses changes in weather and climate extremes on regional and global scales, including observed changes and their attribution, as well as projected changes. The extremes considered include temperature extremes, heavy precipitation and pluvial floods, river floods, droughts, storms (including tropical cyclones), as well as compound e...

Future drought-hazard assessments using standardized indices depend on the period used to calibrate the probability distributions. This appears to be particularly important in a changing climate with significant trends in drought-related variables. This study explores the effect of using different approaches to project droughts, with a focus on cha...

This study reviews the evolution of scientific research on climatic droughts in Spain over the last few decades. The complexity of this natural hazard and the wide incidence of droughts in Spain have led to great interest from scientists in Spain, and generated a significant amount of scientific work on the topic over the last two decades. Climatic...

Climate proxy data are required for improved understanding of climate variability and change in the pre-instrumental period. We present the first international initiative to compile and share information on pro pluvia rogation ceremonies, which is a well-studied proxy of agricultural drought. Currently, the database has more than 3500 dates of cele...

This study investigates changes in air quality conditions during the restricted COVID-19 lockdown period in 2020 across 21 metropolitan areas in the Middle East and how these relate to surface urban heat island (SUHI) characteristics. Based on satellite observations of atmospheric gases from Sentinel-5, results indicate significant reductions in th...

The Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI), based on atmospheric evapo-rative demand, was proposed by Hobbins et al. (2016) to analyse and monitor drought. The EDDI uses a nonparametric approach in which empirically derived probabilities are converted to standardized values. This study evaluates the suitability of eight probability distributions t...

This study analyses long‐term changes in drought indices (Standardised Precipitation Index—SPI, Standardised Precipitation–Evapotranspiration Index—SPEI) at 1 and 3 months scales at 182 stations in 11 central and eastern European countries during 1949–2018. For comparative purposes, the necessary atmospheric evaporative demand (AED) to obtain SPEI...

Drought risks pose serious threats to socio-ecological systems, built environments, livelihoods and human wellbeing. Managing these risks requires long-term collaboration between diverse groups with different values, interests and forms of knowledge. Funders, researchers and practitioners have increasingly advocated for collaborative models of know...

El libro recoge las conferencias invitadas al V Congreso de la Asociación Española de Climatología, celebrado en Zaragoza entre el 18 y el 21 de septiembre de 2006

Flash drought is the result of strong precipitation deficits and/or anomalous increases in atmospheric evaporative demand (AED), which triggers a rapid decline in soil moisture and stresses vegetation over short periods of time. However, little is known about the role of precipitation and AED in the development of flash droughts. For this paper, we...

Spatial and temporal variability of drought in Oman was assessed for the period 1979–2014 using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) at both seasonal (3-month) and annual (12-month) timescales. Changes in drought characteristics (e.g. frequency, duration, intensity, severity,...

This study assesses the spatial and temporal characteristics of nighttime surface urban heat island (SUHI) effects over Greater Cairo: the largest metropolitan area in Africa. This study employed nighttime land surface temperature (LST) data at 1 km resolution from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua sensor for the period...

This study evaluates trends in climatic variables, atmospheric evaporative demand (AED) and meteorological drought between 1988 and 2018 over the southwest of Iran, where the Karkheh Basin is located. For this purpose, we used monthly time series of meteorological variables (precipitation, air temperature, wind speed and sunshine duration). The AED...

Climate change is causing and will most likely continue to cause an escalation of intense storms and hurricanes in the 21st century, with critical social, environmental, and economic consequences in RIOCC countries. Rising air and sea temperatures are contributing to the intensification of larger hurricanes and to increasing frequency, intensity an...

This study presents a climatology and trend analysis of reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo) over continental Spain and the Balearic Islands. Geographic features of the study region play a substantial role in the climatology of ETo. The highest values (in excess of 1,200 mm y⁻¹) are found at lower elevations in the south, while the lowest values...

Droughts can have strong environmental and socioeconomic impacts in the Mediterranean region, in particular for countries relying on rain-fed agricultural production, but also in areas in which irrigation plays an important role and in which natural vegetation has been modified or is subject to water stress. The purpose of this review is to provide...

We present a long-term assessment of precipitation trends in Southwestern Europe (1850–2018) using data from multiple sources, including observations, gridded datasets and global climate model experiments. Contrary to previous investigations based on shorter records, we demonstrate, using new long-term, quality controlled precipitation series, the...

The forest fires of 2019 were among the most devastating ever recorded in Bolivia. In this study we analyze the relationship between forest fragmentation and meteorological drought with the spatial distribution of forest fires during that year in the Department of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We carried out a classification of the natural vegetation using...

We evaluated the response of vegetation’s photosynthetic activity to drought conditions from 1998 to 2014 over Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The connection between vegetation stress and drought events was assessed by means of a correlation analysis between the monthly Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI), at several time scale...

The negative impacts of drought on forest growth and productivity last for several years generating legacies, although the factors that determine why such legacies vary across sites and tree species remain unclear. We used an extensive network of tree‐ring width (RWI, ring‐width index) records of 16 tree species from 567 forests, and high‐resolutio...