Determining the usefulness of the Copernicus High-Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity Product (HR-VPP) with official agricultural data on cropland in case of the 2018 drought in the Federal State of Saxony, Germany

Abstract Remote sensing-based data on vegetation conditions provide important information for agriculture. In this study, the potential uses of the freely available High-Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity Product (HR-VPP) are tested. This test examines the 2018 drought year in the state of Saxony, Germany, and the capabilities and limitations of the HR-VPP product in use with Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) data. The results show that field and crop type-specific spatial (re)analyses of a drought are possible and that there is still great potential in this data analysis. Using the data in a new proposed VPP-based Farm-Level Temporal Comparison Indicator (VPP-FLTCI), it was not possible to tease out patterns in why farms applied for state drought aid in 2018 compared to other farms. In the future, even better and more detailed analyses based on the HR-VPP can be expected, as the data series with now a total of 5 years is still very short to generate sufficient references, especially in Central European agriculture, which is characterized by crop rotation.