Long term Landsat series image and index product dataset for grassland bearing capacity assessment in Darhamo Ming'an United Banner

The Darhamo Ming'an United Banner belongs to the temperate semi-arid continental climate zone in China. Grassland serves as the largest terrestrial ecosystem in the region and plays a vital role as a part of the northern ecological security barrier in our country. The spatiotemporal distribution pattern and change trend of the grassland are important indicators for evaluating the regional land desertification status. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), as one of the most commonly used remote sensing indices for studying vegetation growth status, can characterize the spatiotemporal changes of vegetation. Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC) is a comprehensive quantitative indicator of the surface conditions covered by vegetation communities and is an essential parameter for describing vegetation communities and ecosystems. This article is based on a long time series of Landsat satellite images and generates composite images with a resolution of 30 meters for the growing seasons of Darhamo Ming'an United Banner in the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. Additionally, it calculates NDVI maximum and average values, as well as FVC maximum and average values. Based on the two FVC data products, the coefficient of variation was used to analyze the volatility of vegetation cover changes, Slope trend analysis was used to explore the spatial and temporal characteristics of vegetation cover changes, and the Hurst index was used to predict the future development trend of vegetation cover in the study area. To ensure the reliability and accuracy of the data results, quality control measures were applied in data preprocessing, image synthesis strategies, NDVI computation, and FVC inversion. This dataset can provide robust data support for applications such as the investigation and classification of grassland resources, monitoring of grassland area changes, and analysis and assessment of grassland carrying capacity in the Darhamo Ming'an United Banner.