FutureWater redesigns the web-based platform InfoSequía.es by improving the visualization and the interactive extraction of drought information. InfoSequía.es provides weekly updates of drought severity maps, bulletins and historical series of satellite drought indices. This information aims to complement hydrological drought indices published by the Water Basin Authorities and the Spanish National Drought Observatory.

Several regions of Spain are currently experiencing a severe drought. Conflicts among regions and different competing sectors are in the news, almost daily, and policymakers are looking for solutions. Moreover, it is expected that during the coming decades droughts will become more frequent and severe due to climate change and increasing pressures on renewable and exploitable water resources. These impacts are expected to be even worse in vulnerable areas like the Mediterranean. The ability of our societies to adapt to these extreme weather events will depend on our ability to identify them early and predict their effects with the aid of Drought Monitoring and Decision Support Systems.

Since 2013, FutureWater has been developing  InfoSequía (http://infosequia.es), a web-based operational climate service that monitors weekly the levels of drought severity over the Spanish Iberian Peninsula based on satellite-based indicators and anomalies related to vegetation greenness and land surface temperature.

Now, the user-interface of InfoSequia has been redesigned to enhance the access to data through the inclusion of new interactive features and web-mapping technologies. In the new web-platform, users can quickly check the spatial patterns and time trajectories of various drought severity indices for different areas of interest. Currently, the portal allows a user to evaluate drought status at two management levels: agricultural counties and administrative units of water management. Also, the platform allows downloading a weekly overview in the form of a bulletin of the drought situation. Soon the platform will be fully operational and weekly updated information will be provided in semi-realtime.

Acknowledgments

The development of the web-based climate service InfoSequia has been partially funded by the European Social Fund through a Torres-Quevedo research contract (2013-2016) awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and the European H2020 project Bridging the Gap for Innovations in Disaster Resilience (www.brigaid.eu) (2016-2020). Santander-Universidades is also acknowledged for the concession of a CRUE-CEPYME enterprise fellowship.