Serving science
The Spot Vegetation dataset has close to 10 000 registered users around the globe and has contributed to hundreds of scientific papers over 15 years. But with further Spot satellites lacking the capacity to carry Vegetation instruments, Proba-V has been designed to meet the future needs of this group.
Vegetation can distinguish between different land cover types and plant species, including crops, to reveal their health, as well as detect water bodies and vegetation burn scars. Vegetation provides a detailed daily snapshot of land cover across a continental scale on a near-daily basis.
Vegetation is a leading source of key European and global vegetation data products (such as Leaf Area Index and Normalised Density Vegetation Index) provided to environmental researchers through European Commission programmes.
These are harnessed in turn for scientific and operational activities that range from climate impact assessments and surface water resource management to agricultural monitoring – feeding for example the MARS Bulletin on European Union crop production forecasts – and food security estimates.
