South Africa FAPAR Vegetation Anomalies: 10-Day VIIRS Composites

Copernicus provides 10-day composite GEOTIFF files measuring Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) anomalies across South Africa. These records, derived from Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensors, track vegetation health and agricultural drought impacts. The data uses a standardized 0 to 1 scale to quantify photosynthetic activity and greenness.

Use Cases

• Detecting agricultural drought by analyzing FAPAR anomaly values across South African regions
• Monitoring vegetation health trends using the 10-day time composite GEOTIFF layers
• Assessing photosynthetic activity levels using the 0 to 1 dimensionless scale to predict crop stress

Strengths

• 10-day temporal resolution for monitoring rapid environmental changes
• Standardized 0-1 biophysical scale for consistent comparison
• Derived from professional-grade VIIRS sensor data

Limitations

• Geographic restriction to South Africa
• Raster-only format without accompanying tabular attributes
• Optical sensor susceptibility to cloud cover interference in composites

Provenance

Source

Copernicus

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)

Freshness

Updated as recently as March 2026 per source metadata.

Geography

South Africa