15. ECOSTRESS Gauges Plant Stress on Costa Rican Drought - Image Advisory
ECOSTRESS Sees Drought Stress on Costa Rican Plants
NASA's View of Drought Stress on Costa Rican Plants
Image Advisory
NASA’s ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) has imaged the stress that Costa Rican vegetation is experiencing during a massive drought in Central America. The drought caused that nation's government to declare a state of emergency on July 23.
Parts of Costa Rica have received 75% less rainfall than normal in the drought, which is the result of abnormal weather patterns accompanying an El Niño. That event began in November 2018, and its effects were already visible to ECOSTRESS just a few months later, as the image shows.
More intense drought conditions, shown in red colors, are centered on the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica. Guanacaste is part of a tropical dry forest region in Central America, called the Dry Corridor, that is particularly sensitive to droughts. Normally very cloudy, it had few clouds (light gray) when ECOSTRESS acquired this image.