Panama Subnational NDVI: Dekadal Vegetation Indicators and Anomalies

Supplying dekadal (10-day) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) indicators for Panama, aggregated by sub-national administrative units using NASA MODIS collection 6.1 satellite data. Produced by the World Food Programme (WFP), the records include current NDVI values, long-term averages, and percentage anomalies updated through March 2026.

Use Cases

• Monitoring agricultural health by comparing current NDVI (vim) against the long-term average (vim_lta)
• Identifying drought or vegetation stress using the NDVI anomaly percentage (viq)
• Analyzing temporal vegetation trends across specific Panama administrative units using Pcode identifiers

Strengths

• Derived from NASA MODIS collection 6.1 high-resolution satellite imagery
• Includes long-term average (vim_lta) for historical baseline comparison
• Standardized administrative mapping using WFP Pcodes
• Provides pixel count (n_pixels) to indicate the data density of each aggregate

Limitations

• Aggregated at the administrative level, losing granular pixel-level spatial variance
• Dependent on cloud-free satellite observations for accurate NDVI calculation
• Temporal coverage start date is not explicitly defined in the metadata

Provenance

Source

World Food Programme (WFP) using NASA MODIS collection 6.1

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing (MODIS Aqua and Terra) aggregated to administrative boundaries

Freshness

Updated as of March 2026.

Geography

Panama (sub-national level)