# MOD13 Vegetation Indices (MODIS NDVI/EVI)
*data products*

## Specifications
- **level**: L3
- **distributor**: nasa
- **gsd m**: {"native":250}
- **file format**: HDF-EOS2
- **access endpoint**: https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov
- **access model**: open
- **licence**: NASA EOSDIS open data
- **primary data portal url**: https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov
- **use cases**: ["Multi-decadal vegetation greenness and phenology monitoring","Tropical deforestation baseline and context (complement to alert products)","NOAA AVHRR NDVI continuity record (climate studies, pre-2000 extension)","Agricultural monitoring and crop condition assessment","Biomass and carbon stock change analysis support"]
- **practical limitations**: ["16-day composite cadence unsuitable for near-real-time deforestation alerting","250 m GSD resolves landscape-scale change, not individual clearings below about 6 hectare","SIN grid projection requires reprojection for standard GIS use (CMG variants avoid this)","Terra and Aqua VI values differ systematically due to equatorial crossing time differences; not interchangeable without cross-calibration awareness","HDF-EOS2 format requires specialised tools (gdal, HEG, pyhdf) for standard raster workflows"]
- **known artefacts**: ["Snow commission, EVI increases over snow (opposite of NDVI behaviour); mixed-pixel snow contamination inflates EVI in boreal and alpine winter","Cloud persistence, despite compositing, persistent cloud cover in the equatorial belt can result in degraded-quality composites; pixel reliability flags must be applied"]
- **last verified date**: "2026-05-18T00:00:00.000Z"
- **verified by**: agency-doc
- **claim status**: agency-verified
- **deployment context**: orbital

## Compositional position
- defor (topics) --[topic_capabilities]--> MOD13 Vegetation Indices (MODIS NDVI/EVI)

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Source: https://eo-atlas.org/data_products/mod13-vegetation-indices
Maintainer: SpectraWorks B.V. (CC-BY 4.0)