## 3 Results  
### The 2015/16 Drought  
Firstly, the temperature and precipitation anomalies were analyzed in the two sub-areas (regions framed in Figure 1). Compared to the annual mean precipitation during 2007 to 2014 (Figure 2a), the crop area experienced continuous severe precipitation deficits in 2015 (with minimum anomaly \(-148.71\)mm in October) and recovered in 2016. Moreover, substantially warmer temperatures (with maximum anomaly \(2.04\ ^{\circ}\)C in April of 2016) during the 2015/16 El Nino event made the drought unique and extreme (Figure 2a). The values of scPDSI were below 0 from the end of 2014-2016 (Figure 2b), which corresponded well to the period of El Nino event. In addition, this extreme drought can also be detected from the persistent negative values of TWS (Figure 2b). Higher temperature and less precipitation led to the sustained deficits of TWS and much lower scPDSI values in the crop region. The values of scPDSI in several extreme dry months were less than \(-2\), reaching moderate drought level (Figure 2b). In EBF area, the precipitation was slightly below the average in late 2015 and early 2016 (with minimum anomaly \(-85.82\) mm in December of 2015) and the temperature increased continuously (with maximum anomaly \(1.13\ ^{\circ}\)C in April of 2016) (Figure 2c). Increased temperature and decreased precipitation affected groundwater conditions in this area, leading to a substantial reduction of TWS during the drought. The values of scPDSI were less than \(-1\), which indicated the mild drought level. And the low scPDSI lasted up to 7 months (from July in 2015 to January in 2016) (Figure 2d). Owing to the increase of precipitation in the EBF area, the scPDSI gradually became positive in 2016, indicating the recovery of regional drought conditions.  
Spatially, temperature anomalies in 2015/16 (Figure 3a,b) exceeded two standard deviations relative to the multiyear mean from 2007 to 2014 over the most of Southeast Asia. Large increases of temperature existed in 2016 and the anomalies were larger than three standard deviations from the multiyear mean over the EBF area. Significant positive anomalies in radiation, with larger than three standard deviations in 2015, were observed over cropland area in 2015 and 2016 (Figure 3e,f). In EBF areas, radiation dropped dramatically in 2015 because of the fire which happened in Indonesia from September to October in 2015 [6] but significantly increased in 2016 which agreed well with the changes of temperature. In addition, the two studied areas experienced water deficits in 2015 and the precipitation anomalies in cropland area were smaller than 1.5 standard deviations relative to the multi-year mean. Precipitation recovered in 2016 in most parts of EBF area. According to the drought index, scPDSI showed negative values in cropland area in 2015 and 2016, while the values of scPDSI became positive in some parts of EBF area in 2016 (Figure 3g,h). The two sub-areas were greatly affected by the severe drought induced by the strong El Nino event during 2015 and 2016. Therefore, it is important to investigate the drought impacts on vegetation productivity of crop and forest in Southeast Asia.  
Figure 2: Monthly anomalies of temperature, precipitation, TWS and scPDSI in croplands (**a,b**) and in evergreen broadleaf forest area (**c,d**) from January 2007 to December 2016. The shaded area showed the drought years.