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