Afghanistan Subnational NDVI: Dekadal Vegetation Indices and Anomalies

Delivering dekadal (10-day) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) indicators for Afghanistan, aggregated by sub-national administrative units using NASA MODIS collection 6.1 satellite data. Produced by the World Food Programme (WFP), the records track vegetation health through current values, long-term averages, and percentage anomalies. The data is maintained to support food security monitoring and agricultural assessment across all administrative regions in the country.

Use Cases

• Monitoring agricultural health by comparing current NDVI (vim) against the long-term average (vim_lta)
• Identifying drought conditions or crop failure using the NDVI anomaly percentage (viq)
• Analyzing vegetation trends over time across specific Pcode-referenced administrative regions

Strengths

• Derived from NASA MODIS collection 6.1 high-resolution satellite data
• Includes long-term average (vim_lta) for historical baseline comparison
• Provides pixel count (n_pixels) to indicate the statistical reliability of each aggregate

Limitations

• Aggregated at the sub-national level, which may mask localized vegetation changes within large administrative units
• Dependent on cloud-free satellite observations for accurate NDVI calculation
• Specific start date for the time series is not explicitly defined in the metadata

Provenance

Source

World Food Programme (WFP) using NASA MODIS collection 6.1

Collection Method

Satellite sensor data aggregation

Freshness

Updated through March 2026 per source metadata.

Geography

Afghanistan