South Africa Subnational NDVI: 10-Day Vegetation Indicators and Anomalies

South Africa dekadal NDVI indicators aggregated by sub-national administrative units, produced by the World Food Programme (WFP). The data utilizes NASA MODIS collection 6.1 satellite imagery from Aqua and Terra platforms to track vegetation health at 10-day intervals.

Use Cases

• Monitoring agricultural health by comparing current NDVI (vim) against the long-term average (vim_lta)
• Identifying drought conditions using the NDVI anomaly percentage (viq)
• Validating spatial data reliability for specific regions using the n_pixels column

Strengths

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

Limitations

• Aggregated at the administrative level, which obscures fine-grained spatial variation within units
• Dependent on WFP-specific administrative boundaries and Pcode references

Provenance

Source

World Food Programme (WFP) and NASA MODIS

Collection Method

Satellite sensor data aggregation from Aqua and Terra platforms

Freshness

Last updated March 2026.

Geography

South Africa