A monthly 250 m Vegetation Drought Resistance Index (VDRI) dataset for China from 2000 to 2022

Abstract

Global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme droughts, threatening terrestrial ecosystem structure and function. However, existing indices often fail to provide a comprehensive representation of the water cycle, and high-resolution datasets for characterizing vegetation responses to drought remain limited. To address this gap, we first developed a monthly Vertical Composite Drought Index (VCDI) by integrating precipitation, surface runoff, soil moisture, and groundwater storage anomalies. This index summarizes multidimensional water constraints across the “atmosphere-surface-subsurface” continuum and captures cumulative effects of drought across multiple timescales. Furthermore, VCDI, land surface temperature, and vegetation greenness were combined to produce a monthly Vegetation Drought Resistance Index (VDRI) dataset for China at 250 m resolution from 2000 to 2022. Multi-source evaluations indicate that VDRI provides spatially detailed and temporally consistent information on vegetation conditions under concurrent hydroclimatic and thermal stress. The datasets support ecosystem assessment, ecological drought monitoring, wildfire risk analysis, and benchmarking for drought-impact studies and related ecological models.