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Full catalog/modis-terra-mod13q1
modis-terra-mod13q1·dataset

Detailed vegetation greenness, 16-day, 250 m (Terra)

MODIS Terra Vegetation Indices 16-Day L3 Global 250m
biosphere ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. It tracks plant greenness and vigor using the NDVI and EVI indices at a sharp 250-meter resolution, choosing the best clear observation from each 16-day window.

How it's made. Generated by ESA Copernicus from NASA's MODIS instrument on Terra, selecting low-cloud pixels and computing vegetation indices as a Level-3 product.

How & where you'd use it. A go-to dataset for field- and landscape-level work: monitoring farms, forests, droughts, and seasonal greening with finer spatial detail.

What's measured

MODISTerraNASASatelliteGlobalVegetationNDVIEVIVegetation Index250mMOD13Q1

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2000-02-18 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90

What you can do with it

  • Map vegetation, forests and biomass
  • Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
  • Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description

The MODIS Terra MOD13Q1 Version 6.1 product provides Vegetation Index (VI) values at 250 m spatial resolution on a per-pixel basis. The dataset includes two primary vegetation indices: the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which maintains continuity with NDVI derived from NOAA-AVHRR observations, and the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), which improves sensitivity in regions with high vegetation biomass. The product is generated as a 16-day composite, where the algorithm selects the best available pixel from all acquisitions within the compositing period based on criteria such as low cloud contamination, low view angle, and the highest NDVI/EVI value. In addition to the vegetation index layers and two quality layers, the dataset includes reflectance bands 1 (red), 2 (near-infrared), 3 (blue), and 7 (mid-infrared), as well as four observation layers.

Get the data

copernicus_access.py
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
    collections=["modis-terra-mod13q1"],   # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
    bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60),             # your area (W,S,E,N)
    datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items())            # then read assets with rioxarray / xarray
Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.