Climate Victioria: Forest Drought Stress Index (FDSI)

Annual Forest Drought Stress Index (FDSI, Park Williams et al., 2013) for Victoria, Australia,1981 to 2019. The FDSI was originally developed for the United States, where it has been associated with forest productivity, drought, mortality, pest outbreaks, and wildfire. The original equation was adapted for temperate climates of the southern hemisphere by shifting cold-season precipitation to May through September, and warm-season vapour pressure deficit to November through April. Refer to the Lineage for further details.\n\n\n\nLineage: The FDSI was calculated as:\n\nFDSI = 0.44[z-score(log(Pmjjas))] - 0.56[z-score(VPDfma + VPDndj)]\n\nwhere Pmjjas is the sum of cold-season precipitation (Mar to September), and VPDfma / VPDndj is the mean vapour pressure deficit between February and April / November and January of the following year.\n\nThe VPD was calculated as:\n\nVPD = es - ea\n\nwhere ea is vapour pressure and es is the saturation vapour pressure. The es was calculated as a function of mean air temperature (T, calculated as the average of minimum and maximum values)\n\nes(T)=6.1094×e^((17.625×T)/(243.04+T)).\n\nThe required input meteorological variables (minimum and maximum air temperature, precipitation, and vapour pressure), developed as part of previous research in Victoria, are available elsewhere on the CSIRO DAP. Please refer to the links below for details.