NDVI dataset of Huanjiang Observation and Research Station for Karst Ecosystem remotely sensed with a UAV during 2016

Huanjiang Observation and Research Station for Karst Ecosystem, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is located in the northwest Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. This location exhibits typical karst landforms of a peak-cluster depression in southwest China with high landscape heterogeneity, which renders acquiring high-accuracy ground features difficult. A normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) dataset for four sub-sites was derived from a multispectral (i.e., green, red, red edge, near infrared) sensor aboard a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The data processes consisted of quality control, image merging, map projection, and data output. The dataset was saved and presented as raster-type Geotiff image. The space resolution was 0.3–0.5 m. This dataset produced good-quality UAV imaging and NDVI data that can be used to investigate the vegetation cover at small watershed and local scales, revise multi-scale satellite-derived NDVI data for the same regions, and bridge the scale gap between surface-surveyed data and the coarse resolution of remote sensing images.