Near-real-time MODIS-derived vegetation index data products for CONUS based on LANCE

This is a Near-Real-Time (NRT) Vegetation Index (VI) data set for the Conterminous United States (CONUS) based on MODIS data from Land, Atmosphere Near-real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE), an openly accessible NASA near-real-time EO data repository. The data set includes a variety of commonly used VIs including Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), Mean-referenced Vegetation Condition Index (MVCI), Ratio to Median Vegetation Condition Index (RMVCI), and Ratio to Previous-year Vegetation Condition Index (RVCI). LANCE enables the NRT monitoring of U.S. cropland vegetation conditions within 24 hours of observation. Meanwhile, this continuous data set with more than 20 years of vegetation condition observation would be suitable for time series analysis and change detection in many research fields such as agriculture, remote sensing, geographical information science and systems, environmental modeling, and Earth system science.The complete set of VI data products is distributed via Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) as well as free to access through VegScape (https://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/VegScape/).