NDVI averages for Brazilian municipalities

Introduction

The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is a indicator that quantifies vegetation cover and health by measuring the difference between near-infrared (strongly reflected by healthy plants) and red light (absorbed by chlorophyll). Its has the ability to capture environmental conditions that influence disease dynamics, nutrition, and overall well-being. For example, NDVI helps identify areas at risk of vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, and leishmaniasis, since vegetation cover and humidity create favorable habitats for vectors like mosquitoes and sandflies. NDVI also supports urban health research by assessing the distribution of green spaces, which are linked to reduced air pollution exposure, better mental health, and mitigation of heat stress.

I created this dataset with NDVI averages for Brazilian municipalities using a zonal statistics procedure with data available from the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service.

Source data

The following source data were used.

Methods

First, the available data for each month was averaged, generating monthly NDVI files. Then, for each month, the following zonal statistics were computed for each Brazilian municipality: mean, maximum value, minimum value, standard variation.

The R scripts for download, processing and export data are available here.

Download

1999-2024:

2025:

Data example

library(dplyr)
library(zendown)
library(arrow)
library(ggplot2)

zen_file(deposit_id = 17093199, file_name = "ndvi_mean.parquet") |>
  open_dataset() |>
  filter(code_muni == 2510808) |>
  collect() |>
  ggplot(aes(x = date, y = value)) +
  geom_line() +
  ylim(0, 1) +
  labs(title = "Monthly average NDVI", subtitle = "Patos, PB") +
  theme_bw()

zen_file(deposit_id = 18329383, file_name = "ndvi_mean.parquet") |>
  open_dataset() |>
  filter(code_muni == 2312908) |>
  collect() |>
  ggplot(aes(x = date, y = value)) +
  geom_line() +
  ylim(0, 1) +
  labs(title = "Monthly average NDVI", subtitle = "Sobral, CE") +
  theme_bw()

Session info

sessioninfo::session_info()
─ Session info ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 setting  value
 version  R version 4.3.3 (2024-02-29)
 os       Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
 system   x86_64, linux-gnu
 ui       X11
 language (EN)
 collate  en_US.UTF-8
 ctype    pt_BR.UTF-8
 tz       America/Sao_Paulo
 date     2026-01-21
 pandoc   3.6.3 @ /usr/share/positron/resources/app/quarto/bin/tools/x86_64/ (via rmarkdown)
 quarto   1.8.26 @ /opt/quarto/bin/quarto

─ Packages ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 package      * version  date (UTC) lib source
 arrow        * 22.0.0.1 2025-12-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 assertthat     0.2.1    2019-03-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 backports      1.5.0    2024-05-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 bit            4.6.0    2025-03-06 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 bit64          4.6.0-1  2025-01-16 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 checkmate      2.3.3    2025-08-18 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 cli            3.6.5    2025-04-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 dichromat      2.0-0.1  2022-05-02 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 digest         0.6.39   2025-11-19 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 dplyr        * 1.1.4    2023-11-17 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 evaluate       1.0.5    2025-08-27 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 farver         2.1.2    2024-05-13 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 fastmap        1.2.0    2024-05-15 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 fs             1.6.6    2025-04-12 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 generics       0.1.4    2025-05-09 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 ggplot2      * 4.0.1    2025-11-14 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 glue           1.8.0    2024-09-30 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 gtable         0.3.6    2024-10-25 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 htmltools      0.5.9    2025-12-04 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 htmlwidgets    1.6.4    2023-12-06 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 jsonlite       2.0.0    2025-03-27 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 knitr          1.51     2025-12-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 labeling       0.4.3    2023-08-29 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 lifecycle      1.0.5    2026-01-08 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 magrittr       2.0.4    2025-09-12 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 otel           0.2.0    2025-08-29 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 pillar         1.11.1   2025-09-17 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 pkgconfig      2.0.3    2019-09-22 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 purrr          1.2.1    2026-01-09 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 R6             2.6.1    2025-02-15 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 RColorBrewer   1.1-3    2022-04-03 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 rlang          1.1.7    2026-01-09 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 rmarkdown      2.30     2025-09-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 S7             0.2.1    2025-11-14 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 scales         1.4.0    2025-04-24 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 sessioninfo    1.2.3    2025-02-05 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 tibble         3.3.1    2026-01-11 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 tidyselect     1.2.1    2024-03-11 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 vctrs          0.7.0    2026-01-16 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 withr          3.0.2    2024-10-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 xfun           0.56     2026-01-18 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 yaml           2.3.12   2025-12-10 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)
 zendown      * 0.1.0    2024-05-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.3)

 [1] /home/raphaelsaldanha/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3
 [2] /usr/local/lib/R/site-library
 [3] /usr/lib/R/site-library
 [4] /usr/lib/R/library
 * ── Packages attached to the search path.

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