The planned activities include extending the spatial coverage of the POETS (Python Open Earth Observation Tools) platform over India and Sri Lanka to provide additional information for decision-making in face of the currently severe drought conditions. Testing satellite-derived soil moisture for this region of interest does not only allow relating current deficiencies to long-term measurements. It also facilitates quick and easy access to the corresponding images and time series via a web platform. Information can be extracted for individual grid points or as averages for administrative units. The spatial resolution of all datasets is 0,25 degrees (roughly 28 kilometers). Updates will be performed at decadal (10-day) time steps. If successful, the findings of this pilot study can be used as the basis for a larger-scale initiative, linking soil moisture to other environmental key variables (e. g. rainfall, land surface temperature) or to the development of a corresponding smart phone application to integrate socio-economic and environmental information.