vegetation_condition_index

Vegetation Condition Index

Show script or download{:target="_blank"} it

{% highlight javascript %} {% include_relative script.js %} {% endhighlight %}

Evaluate and visualize

• EO Browser{:target="_blank"}
• Sentinel Hub Playground temporal

Sentinel Hub RESTful API: Click to view the request{:target="_blank"}

Save script.js to your current directory and run the bash command above. Don't forget to insert your actual access token.

General description of the script

The vegetation condition index [1] compares the NDVI at current (observed) time to historical values, i.e. to NDVI at similar dates in previous years:

VCI = (NDVI_observed - NDVI_hist_min) / (NDVI_hist_max - NDVI_hist_min)

Please note that in case of Sentinel 2, only a few years of history are available.

The script takes the newest (latest) available scene as the observed one -- thus, the observed date can be chosen in the Sentinel Hub Playground GUI (or, in case of API request, via the dataFilter.timeRange.to field). Then, for each previous year the script finds the one closest to the same date, but not more than toleranceDays from that date.

Because of the multi-temporal nature of this index, be sure to use it in the temporal version of Sentinel Hub Playground with "Enable temporal data" checked in the "Effects" tab, or in case of API request, set the dataFilter.timeRange.to field far enough back to include all available history.

The actual scenes (dates) used can be returned as meta-data with an API requests by replacing the responses part of the request with:

  "responses":  [{
    "identifier": "userdata",
    "format": { "type": "application/json" }
  }]

Example response:

{
  "historical": [
    "2018-09-08T00:00:00.000Z",
    "2016-09-13T00:00:00.000Z",
    "2015-09-09T00:00:00.000Z"
  ],
  "observed": "2019-09-13T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Description of representative images

Vegetation condition index near Dodge City, Kansas, USA. Acquired on 30.05.2020.

References

[1] https://www.indexdatabase.de/db/i-single.php?id=249