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Identifying hydrological indices derived with datasets from remotely sensed products to monitor climate change and variability impacts on water resources: a systematic review
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DOI：10.3389/frwa.2026.1850016.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Hydrological indices are widely used to assess climate change and climate variability impacts on water resources; however; their application is often constrained by limited in-situ observations; particularly in data-scarce regions. Advances in remote sensing have enabled the development of hydrological indices derived from satellite and reanalysis datasets; providing new opportunities for monitoring droughts; water storage dynamics; and hydrological extremes. This systematic review synthesizes evidence on remotely sensed products and hydrological indices used for water resources monitoring between 2014 and 2024. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines; literature was systematically searched in ScienceDirect; Semantic Scholar; IEEE Xplore; and Research4Life databases. After screening 46; 101 records; 50 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. The findings indicate that optical sensors (Landsat; MODIS; Sentinel-2); precipitation products (CHIRPS; TRMM; IMERG); gravity missions (GRACE and GRACE-FO); and reanalysis datasets (ERA5-Land; GLDAS; FLDAS) were the most frequently used products. Commonly applied indices included SPI; SPEI; NDVI; VCI; TCI; ETDI; SRI; and GRACE-DSI. Research was concentrated in Asia; particularly China; while Africa remained underrepresented. Recent studies increasingly integrated multi-source datasets; cloud-computing platforms; and machine-learning approaches to improve hydrological monitoring. The review highlights the growing importance of remote sensing for climate-resilient water resources management and identifies opportunities for broader application in data-scarce regions and groundwater monitoring systems.
Keywords:
drought
climate change impacts
hydrological indices
remote sensing products
water resources monitoring
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