Drought assessment can normally be carried out using MODIS vegetation index (NDVI) and vegetation water index (VWI). The NDVI has been found to be the best index for drought detection as it has better relationship with precipitation and VWI (Bajgiran, 2009).
NDVI reflects changes in chlorophyll content and vegetation amount and has proved to be useful tool for studying vegetation cover change and amount in semiarid and arid environments (Weiss et al, 2004; Fensholt and Sandholt, 2003). VWI can provide valuable information on vegetation and soil water stress and detecting drought status. When combined
with normalized difference vegetation index, the indices can give reliable information on water availability, drought status, vegetation vigour and phenology (Bajgiran et al., 2009).