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Database of Trends in Vegetation Properties and Climate Adaptation Variables -- Raster Stacks of Yearly Mean Vegetation Indices for the Upper Gila River Watershed: 1985 to 2021

Metadata Updated: November 19, 2025

We apply a research approach that can inform riparian restoration planning by developing products that show recent trends in vegetation conditions identifying areas potentially more at risk for degradation and the associated relationship between riparian vegetation dynamics and climate conditions. The full suite of data products and a link to the associated publication addressing this analysis can be found on the Parent data release. For this study, the vegetation conditions are characterized using a series of remote sensing vegetation indices developing using satellite imagery, including the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Tasseled Cap (TC) Transformation. The NDVI is a commonly used vegetation index that quantifies relative greenness of the vegetation based on the plant’s photosynthetic activity, measured as a ratio between the Near Infrared (NIR) and Red bands (Tucker, 1979). The NDVI equation follows: NDVI = (NIR band - Red band) / (NIR band + Red band). NDVI has a range of -1 to 1, though green vegetation theoretically ranges from 0 to 1. Dense green vegetation is represented with values closer to 1 while barren soil, rock, and less-dense surface vegetation has values closer to 0. Values below 0 often represent water due to its unique reflective characteristics. The TC transformation is an approached used to transform satellite imagery into a collection of spectral metrics that can quantify various aspects of the vegetation and soil surfaces (Kauth and Thomas, 1976). Specifically, the TC transformation develops 6 separate metrics, though we only assess the three primary metrics: (i) brightness (transformation 1), (ii) greenness (transformation 2), and (iii) wetness (transformation 3). No specific range is identified for the TC transformation metrics, though for both brightness and greenness, positive values represent brighter and greener conditions, respectively, while negative values represent wetter conditions for wetness. The TC transformation metrics are calculated using a series of coefficients multiplied across reflectance values for the suite of Landsat bands, then summed across each metric. Because bandwidths differ slightly between Landsat 4, 5, 7 and Landsat 8, we use two sets of coefficients and complete the calculation separately before combining the collections into a single series of images (DeVries et al., 2016; Zhai et al., 2022). All raster products were developed using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud computing software program for the Upper Gila River watershed. This is a Child Item for the Parent data release, Mapping Riparian Vegetation Response to Climate Change on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and Upper Gila River Watershed to Inform Restoration Priorities: 1935 to Present - Database of Trends in Vegetation Properties and Climate Adaptation Variables. This Child Item consists of a single XML metadata file and four zipped files containing the raster stacks, where each zipped file contains the rasters for each vegetation index, respectively (i.e., NDVI, TC brightness, TC greenness, TC wetness). The raster stacks within each index-specific zipped folder are identified by the season they represent (i.e., spring, late-spring, summer, fall). Each band within the separate raster stacks (n=37) represents a year from 1985 through 2021 (i.e., band 1 is 1985 and band 37 is 2021).

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 19, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-63cffaf3d34e06fef14fd162
Data Last Modified 2023-06-30T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 35eeae41-0a39-422e-bcf7-827c8f4eb083
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 438679f549aea0e4f9c0cd14d5043bdbd7fa158c9021e000682debb5e715fe8c
Source Schema Version 1.1

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