VIIRS/JPSS1 Vegetation Indices: 16-Day Global 500m Satellite Data

NOAA-20 VIIRS provides three key vegetation indices—NDVI, EVI, and EVI2—by selecting the best pixel over a 16-day period at 500-meter resolution. This product is designed to continue the long-term Earth Observation System mission, building on the MODIS legacy. Alongside the indices, it includes reflectance bands for NIR, SWIR, red, blue, and green, plus composite day, pixel reliability, and view geometry layers.

Use Cases

• Monitoring crop health and agricultural productivity based on NDVI and EVI time series.
• Tracking seasonal vegetation phenology and canopy cover changes using the 16-day composite data.
• Assessing land cover change and ecosystem dynamics with reflectance bands (NIR, SWIR, red, blue, green).
• Validating and comparing vegetation models using the pixel reliability and quality assurance layers.

Strengths

• Provides continuity with the long-term MODIS vegetation indices time series, promoting data consistency.
• Offers three distinct vegetation indices (NDVI, EVI, EVI2) with different sensitivities for canopy and chlorophyll analysis.
• Includes multiple ancillary data layers such as reflectance bands and view angles, which support advanced analysis.

Limitations

• Known data gaps exist for specific tiles (h33v07, h18v14) over water due to missing critical inputs.
• Column names and exact data size or row counts are not provided in the available metadata.
• License information is inconsistently reported across platforms, with 'other-license-specified' noted in some sources but not all.

Provenance

Source

LPCLOUD (NASA Earthdata), derived from NOAA-20 VIIRS sensor.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing, with pixels selected from a 16-day acquisition period.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04-09 according to nasa_earthdata and datagov.

Geography

Global coverage at 500m resolution in a sinusoidal grid, with noted gaps over specific water tiles.