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Description

The MOD13A2 Version 6 data product was decommissioned on July 31, 2023. Users are encouraged to use the MOD13A2 Version 6.1 data product.

The MOD13A2 Version 6 product provides Vegetation Index (VI) values at a per pixel basis at 1 kilometer (km) spatial resolution. There are two primary vegetation layers. The first is the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which is referred to as the continuity index to the existing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA-AVHRR) derived NDVI. The second vegetation layer is the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), which has improved sensitivity over high biomass regions. The algorithm for this product chooses the best available pixel value from all the acquisitions from the 16 day period. The criteria used is low clouds, low view angle and the highest NDVI/EVI value.

Provided along with the vegetation layers and the two quality assurance (QA) layers are reflectance bands 1 (red), 2 (near-infrared), 3 (blue), and 7 (mid-infrared), as well as four observation layers.

Known Issues

  • The following issues have been detected:

    • Unexpected missing data in the last cycles of each year.
    • Incorrect instances of "NoData" and spikes in NDVI values.
    • VI Usefulness Bits are not correctly assigned.

  • For instances where the VI Quality (bits 0-1) is flagged as good and the VI Usefulness (bits 2-5) indicates the same pixels have the lowest usefulness score, users are advised to disregard the usefulness score.

  • The incorrect representation of the aerosol quantities (low, average, high) in the Collection 6 MOD09 surface reflectance products may have impacted MOD13 Vegetation Index data products particularly over arid bright surfaces.

  • Corrections were implemented in Collection 6.1 reprocessing.

  • For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

Version Description

The following changes and improvements were implemented for inputs to MODIS Version 6 vegetation index data products: (1) The 16-day composite VI is generated using the two 8-day composite surface reflectance granules (MOD09A1) in the 16-day period, (2) This surface reflectance input is based on the minimum blue compositing approach used to generate the 8-day surface reflectance product, (3) The product format is consistent with the Version 5 product generated using the Level 2 gridded daily surface reflectance product, and (4) A frequently updated long-term global Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) Average Vegetation Index product database is used to fill the gaps in the CMG product suite.

Product Summary

Platforms
Terra
Instruments
MODIS
Projects
TERRA
Spatial Extent

N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180

Spatial Resolution
1000 Meters x 1000 Meters
Spatial Reference System(s)
MODIS Sinusoidal Tiling System
Location
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
GEODETIC
Temporal Extent
2000-02-18 to 2023-02-17
Temporal Resolution
16 Day
Data Partner
Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) ,
MODIS Adaptive Processing System, Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, Science and Exploration Directorate, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA (NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/MODAPS)
Concept ID
C2763297266-LPCLOUD
Data State
DEPRECATED
Number of Files/Granules
0
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Vegetation Index ,
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) ,
Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

Didan, K. (2015). MOD13A2 MODIS/Terra Vegetation Indices 16-Day L3 Global 1km SIN Grid V006 [Dataset]. NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD13A2.006 Date Accessed: 2026-07-04

File Naming Convention

MOD13A2.A2002257.h09v09.006.2015151080839.hdf

The file name begins with the Product Short Name (MOD13A2) followed by the Julian Date of Acquisition formatted as AYYYYDDD (A2002257), the Tile Identifier which is horizontal tile and vertical tile provided as hXXvYY (h09v09), the Version of the data collection (006), the Julian Date and Time of Production designated as YYYYDDDHHMMSS (2015151080839), and the Data Format (hdf).

Documents

USER'S GUIDE

ALGORITHM THEORETICAL BASIS DOCUMENT (ATBD)

DATA PRODUCT SPECIFICATION

PRODUCT QUALITY ASSESSMENT

SCIENCE DATA PRODUCT VALIDATION

Publications Citing This Dataset

Filters
Title Year Author Topic
Global drought monitoring with big geospatial datasets using Google Earth Engine Khan, Ramla, Gilani, Hammad Surface Pressure, Heat Flux, Longwave Radiation, Shortwave Radiation, Air Temperature, Specific Humidity, Evapotranspiration, Wind Speed, Rain, Snow, Soil Moisture/Water Content, Soil Temperature, Land Surface Temperature, Snow Cover, Snow Depth, Snow Water Equivalent, Runoff, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Generation of spatio-temporally continuous evapotranspiration and its components by coupling a two-source energy balance model and a deep neural network over the Heihe River Basin Cui, Yaokui, Song, Lisheng, Fan, Wenjie Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Albedo, Anisotropy, Reflectance
Yield forecasting with machine learning and small dataWhat gains for grains? Meroni, Michele, Waldner, Francois, Seguini, Lorenzo, Kerdiles, Herve, Rembold, Felix Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Vegetation change and its response to climate extremes in the arid region of northwest china Wang, Simeng, Liu, Qihang, Huang, Chang Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Vegetation greening in more than 94% of the Yellow River Basin (YRB) region in China during the 21st century caused jointly by warming and anthropogenic activities Tian, Feng, Liu, Lei-Zhen, Yang, Jian-Hua, Wu, Jian-Jun Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Terrain Elevation, Digital Elevation/Terrain Model (DEM), Topographical Relief Maps, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Mapping high temperature damaged area of paddy rice along the Yangtze River using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data Dou, Yujie, Huang, Ran, Mansaray, Lamin R., Huang, Jingfeng Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Reflectance, Land Use/Land Cover Classification
NDVI time series stochastic models for the forecast of vegetation dynamics over desertification hotspots Mutti, Pedro R., Lucio, Paulo S., Dubreuil, Vincent, Bezerra, Bergson G. Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Satellite-based mapping of the Universal Thermal Climate Index over the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration Wang, Chenguang, Zhan, Wenfeng, Liu, Zihan, Li, Jiufeng, Li, Long, Fu, Peng, Huang, Fan, Lai, Jiameng, Chen, Jike, Hong, Falu, Jiang, Sida Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity
Risks of neglecting phenology when assessing climatic controls of primary production Bandieri, Lucas M., Fernandez, Roberto J., Bisigato, Alejandro J. Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Satellite detection of varying seasonal water supply restrictions on grassland productivity in the Missouri basin, USA A, Geruo, Velicogna, Isabella, Zhao, Meng, Colliander, Andreas, Kimball, John S. Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Precipitation, Precipitation Amount, Precipitation Rate, Snow, Rain
Response of Natural Vegetation to Climate in Dryland Ecosystems: A Zhang, Fang, Wang, Chenghao, Wang, Zhi-Hua Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Recurrence analysis of vegetation indices for highlighting the ecosystem response to drought eventsAn application to the amazon forest Semeraro, Teodoro, Luvisi, Andrea, Lillo, Antonio O., Aretano, Roberta, Buccolieri, Riccardo, Marwan, Norbert Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Recent ENSO influence on East African drought during rainy seasons through the synergistic use of satellite and reanalysis data Park, Seonyoung, Kang, Daehyun, Yoo, Cheolhee, Im, Jungho, Lee, Myong-In Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux
Non-climatic component provoked substantial spatiotemporal changes of carbon and water use efficiency on the Mongolian Plateau Dong, Gang, Zhao, Fangyuan, Chen, Jiquan, Zhang, Yaoqi, Qu, Luping, Jiang, Shicheng, Ochirbat, Batkhishig, Chen, Jingyan, Xin, Xiaoping, Shao, Changliang Canopy Characteristics, Evergreen Vegetation, Crown, Deciduous Vegetation, Leaf Characteristics, Vegetation Cover, Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity, Evapotranspiration
Monitoring drought using composite drought indices based on remote sensing Liu, Qi, Zhang, Sha, Zhang, Hairu, Bai, Yun, Zhang, Jiahua Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Multivariate assimilation of remotely sensed soil moisture and evapotranspiration for drought monitoring Gavahi, Keyhan, Abbaszadeh, Peyman, Moradkhani, Hamid, Zhan, Xiwu, Hain, Christopher Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux
Temporal Calibration of an Evaporation-Based Spatial Disaggregation Stefan, Vivien-Georgiana, Merlin, Olivier, Escorihuela, Maria-Jose, Molero, Beatriz, Chihrane, Jamal, Villar, Josep Maria, Er-Raki, Salah Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Seasonal grassland productivity forecast for the US Great Plains using Hartman, Melannie D., Parton, William J., Derner, Justin D., Schulte, Darin K., Smith, William K., Peck, Dannele E., Day, Ken A., Del Grosso, Stephen J., Lutz, Susan, Fuchs, Brian A., Chen, Maosi, Gao, Wei Reflectance, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Spatio-temporal patterns of evapotranspiration based on upscaling eddy covariance measurements in the dryland of the North China Plain Fang, Beijing, Lei, Huimin, Zhang, Yucui, Quan, Quan, Yang, Dawen Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux
Spatio-temporal variability of gross primary productivity in moist and dry deciduous plant functional types of Northwest Himalayan foothills of India using temperature-greenness model Srinet, Ritika, Nandy, Subrata, Watham, Taibanganba, Padalia, Hitendra, Patel, N. R., Chauhan, Prakash Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
The spectral portrait of plain landscapes in Russia Titkova, T.B., Zolotokrylin, A.N., Vinogradova, V.V. Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Emissivity, Land Surface Temperature, Albedo, Anisotropy, Reflectance
A comparison of two machine learning classification methods for remote sensing predictive modeling of the forest fire in the north-eastern Siberia Janiec, Piotr, Gadal, Sebastien Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Downscaling satellite retrieved soil moisture using regression tree-based machine learning algorithms over southwest France Liu, Yangxiaoyue, Xia, Xiaolin, Yao, Ling, Jing, Wenlong, Zhou, Chenghu, Huang, Wumeng, Li, Yong, Yang, Ji Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux, Albedo, Anisotropy, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity
Effect of structural uncertainty in passive microwave soil moisture retrieval algorithm Karthikeyan, Lanka, Pan, Ming, Nagesh Kumar, Dasika, Wood, Eric F. Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Brightness Temperature, Soil Moisture/Water Content
Context-aware Deep Representation Learning for Geo-spatiotemporal Mao, Hanzi, Liu, Xi, Duffield, Nick, Yuan, Hao, Ji, Shuiwang, Mohanty, Binayak Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
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