Vegetation growth and phenology are strongly influenced by climatic conditions. Particularly in Southern Europe, significant impacts of climate change on vegetation are expected in the future. Monitoring and analysing on-going vegetation trends and their climatic drivers can help to understand possible impacts of climate change on vegetation.

Remote sensing has become a standard in monitoring land surface dynamics, because satellite observations facilitate area-wide spatially continuous monitoring of the Earth’s surface and allow environmental analyses over large areas and long time periods. Vegetation indices derived from remote sensing, such as the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), are well established for monitoring the state of the vegetation.

A recent study (Eisfelder et al. 2025) used the TIMELINE NDVI data, a novel NDVI product allowing for European-wide long-term vegetation analyses at 1 km spatial resolution, to investigate 30-year seasonal NDVI time-series and climatic drivers across Europe.

The study by Eisfelder et al. (2025) analysed seasonal NDVI trends over Europe derived from the monthly TIMELINE NDVI composites for the 30-year period from 1989 to 2018. Additionally, climate drivers (temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, and vapor pressure deficit (VPD)) and their influence on the NDVI were investigated. The analyses were performed for the three seasons of spring (March–May), summer (June–August), and autumn (September–November) and for individual land cover types and different biogeographical regions across Europe.

The results of the study showed that significant positive causal relationships between NDVI and temperature prevailed in spring across large parts of Europe. VPD influenced spring NDVI in north-eastern (positive link) and southern Europe (negative link). In summer, precipitation showed positive causal links to the NDVI in parts of the Anatolian and Mediterranean regions, while VPD influenced the NDVI regionally (negative link). In autumn, precipitation (positive link) and VPD (negative link) were found to be the dominant controlling factors on the NDVI for central-eastern Europe and parts of the Iberian Peninsula.

The study further found that significant positive NDVI trends in spring can be mainly explained by increasing temperatures across Europe. Negative spring NDVI trends showed to be linked to decreasing VPD in some regions. In the Mediterranean, Steppic, and Anatolian regions, a coupling between decreasing precipitation and decreasing NDVI was identified for summer and autumn.

The results of the study assist in understanding and quantifying ongoing vegetation change in Europe. The study reveals the varying influence climate variables have on the vegetation for different seasons, individual land cover types, and different regions across Europe.