Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano
The 2025 Sergey Soloviev Medal is awarded to Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano for creating a novel drought indicator, which has become the benchmark for quantifying droughts, and for pioneering studies in the integration of different drought typologies.
Sergio Vicente-Serrano is an internationally leading researcher in the field of drought studies, assessing the impacts of climate change on future droughts at the global scale. His research led to novel ways of looking into drought impacts, including remote sensing as well the role of atmospheric circulation in drought onset, maturation and end stages. He has pioneered the integration of different drought typologies: meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, ecological, and socio-economic.
He has developed many databases at the global, continental and national level, that are used by many thousands of people every year and he is one of the main providers of drought-related indices worldwide. He is best known for creating a novel drought indicator that has become the benchmark for quantifying droughts and assessing their impacts on a global scale (SPEI).
His prolific and high impact research career has developed in parallel with an intense investment in leadership roles, and policy development as promoter and head of the Spanish Climate and Climatic Services Laboratory (LCSC), head of the External Geodynamics subdivision of the Spanish National Agency for Evaluation and Prospects (ANEP), member of the Science-Policy Interface (SPI) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and advisor to the Expert Group on Climate Risks and Sectoral Indices (ET-CRSCI) of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) 15th Commission on Climatology.
Serrano is a key author in a chapter in IPCC WG1 (2021) Assessment report and contributor in other 5 chapters. In 2021, he was included in the Reuters list of the world's 1,000 top climate scientists that was compiled based on the influence of his climate research. He was the recipient of the 2018 International Journal of Climatology Award by the Royal Meteorological Society (UK).
In 2024, he was awarded the Rei Jaume I Prize in the Protection of Nature.