Description: A dataset with 18 years (2001-2018) of consistent, spatial and temporal patterns of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values in Maricopa County AZ
Abstract: This dataset consists of 18 years (2001-2018) of consistent, spatial, and temporal patterns of vegetation indices, as expressed by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), in Maricopa County, AZ. I download and process images, at 250m resolution, from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). MODIS uses the atmospherically-corrected reflectance in the red, near-infrared, and blue wavebands to calculate vegetation indices. In the last decades, vegetation indices have been widely used for monitoring the seasonal variation of vegetation, document vegetation structure, productivity, overall health, and land cover changes and measure vegetation productivity in desert landscapes. NDVI is also of high interest to investigate the potential distribution of plant and animal species and to investigate the effect of climate change on vegetation productivity. MODIS data were obtained from https://lpdaac.usgs.gov, maintained by the NASA EOSDIS Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Spatial Extent: Maricopa County, AZ, USA.