Vegetation Indices, Daily

Short description

Vegetation Indices (VI) product is part of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS), pan-European High Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity (HR-VPP) product suite. The product is comprised of 4 raw Vegetation Indices; (1) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), (2) Leaf Area Index (LAI), (3) Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) and (4) Plant Phenology Index (PPI) generated near real-time (NRT) from Sentinel-2 satellite observations. The raw Vegetation Indices are provided on a daily basis at 10m resolution from October 2016 onwards. Therefore, VI products are available over the EEA39 region for the respective observation day based on 5-day revisit period of Sentinel-2. The VIs are accompanied by a related QFLAG2 band that flags clouds, shadows, snow, open water and other areas where the VI retrieval is less reliable. More information about raw vegetation indices is outlined in the product user manual

Band information

The available bands include: 4 raw vegetation indices and QFLAG2.

Plant Phenology Index (PPI)

PPI is a physically-based vegetation index derived from radiative transfer equation and it is calculated from red and Near-Infrared (NIR) spectral bands. PPI is linearly related to green leaf area index, and can be used to track canopy green foliage dynamics and therefore provides an efficient approach to retrieving plant phenology. Physical values range from 0 to 3.

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

NDVI quantifies vegetation photosynthetic capacity by measuring the difference between the Near-Infrared (NIR) (which vegetation strongly reflects) and red spectral bands (which vegetation absorbs). Although it is not a physical property of vegetation cover, NDVI is widely used as an indicator for live green vegetation monitoring. Physical values range from -1 to 1.

Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR)

FAPAR corresponds to the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by the canopy. FAPAR describes only the green parts of the canopy. FAPAR is very useful in assessing the primary productivity of canopies. Physical values range from 0 to 1.

Leaf Area Index (LAI)

LAI is defined as one half of the total area of photosynthetically active elements of the canopy per unit horizontal ground area. The LAI provided by HRVPP corresponds to actual LAI of all the canopy layers, including all green contributors. Practically, the LAI quantifies the thickness of the vegetation cover. Physical values range from 0 to 8.

Quality Flag (QFLAG2)

Value Class name Description
1 Clear Land Clear-sky land observation (propagated from base SCL class 4 and 5)
2 Clear Water Clear-sky water observation (propagated from base SCL class 6)
4 Cloud Cloud detected (propagated from base SCL class 8 and 9)
8 Cloud shadow Pixel located within the projection of a detective cloud defined using the solar elevation and azimuth and limited to 9km distance from the cloud
16 Topographic shadow Topographic shadow, shadow detected located outside cloud projection and within estimated topographic shadow (propagated from base SCL class 2)
32 Thin cirrus Dense semi-transparent cloud, classified as haze or dense semi-transparent cloud (propagated from base SCL class 10)
64 Snow Clear-sky observation classified as snow (propagated from base SCL class 11)
128 Snow extra Clear-sky observation classified as snow (propagated from HR Snow&Ice)
256 Unclassified Propagated from base SCL class 7
512 Eroded Cloud or cloud shadow pixel located within 8 pixels at edge of the cloud or cloud shadow
1024 Cloud proximity Clear-sky pixel located closer than 20 pixels of detected cloud
2048 Cloud shadow proximation Clear-sky pixel located closer than 30pixels of detected cloud shadow
4096 Extended cloud proximity Clear-sky pixel located closer than 60 pixels of detected cloud
8192 Extended cloud shadow proximity Clear sky pixel located closer than 50 pixels of detected cloud shadow
16384 Reserved Reserved for future use
32768 Reserved Reserved for future use
65535 Invalid No value

More information

Representative Images

FAPAR FAPAR August 1, 2020, South Tyrol Northern Italy.
NDVI NDVI August 1, 2020, South Tyrol Northern Italy.
PPI PPI August 1, 2020, South Tyrol Northern Italy.