The daily volumetric surface soil moisture from the Advanced Microwave Scan-ning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) and monthly precipitation from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) were collected and used for verification of the results. In addition, we compared the efficiency of TVDI with a commonly used drought index, the crop water stress index (CWSI),
derived from the MODIS LST alone