NDVI Monitoring

Workflow Goal

Track vegetation condition through time and flag areas where greenness changes may indicate stress, recovery, seasonal shifts, or land management activity.

Outline

• Define the monitoring question, area of interest, season, comparison period, and decision threshold.
• Identify suitable optical imagery, cloud masks, land cover masks, and any field observations or management boundaries.
• Calculate NDVI consistently across dates, then normalize or summarize values by parcel, watershed, grid cell, or ecosystem unit.
• Compare current NDVI against a baseline, rolling average, same-season reference period, or known pre-event condition.
• Separate likely signal from noise by checking clouds, shadows, snow, phenology, irrigation timing, and sensor differences.
• Produce maps, time-series charts, anomaly layers, and ranked areas for follow-up review.
• Document QA checks, uncertainty notes, and criteria for interpreting apparent vegetation change.

Later Examples

• Seasonal crop vigor monitoring by field boundary.
• Drought stress screening across rangeland management units.
• Post-restoration vegetation recovery tracking.