NDVI - an Index not only for foresters

When talking about an Index, most business people would think of an ETF or Dow Jones. When you are dealing a lot with forests and buildings though, you might also think about the NDVI – the normalized difference vegetation index. In times of climate change even our currencies may change a bit, with products being photosyntetically active becoming more valuable. Oxygen and glucose produced whilst carbon dioxid being consumed, thats what the NDVI helps you to find.

Let me skip the details of calculating the NDVI – in our charts dark green means a lot of healthy stuff, red may just mean a white surface like the top of a truck or the roof of a building. Red means quite sure the absence of vegetation. So, when looking at your neighborhood, the NDVI may actually show wealthy areas simply because wealthy peoply typically love fresh air from healthy vegetation around them. You may also see ahead of time when a shortage of rain may expose your buildings to future forest fires.

The NDVI is not a magic bullet but same as the Dow Jones a pretty robust statement about the general health of the system you look at. We have built the NDVI into our WaldCursor because we believe this is going to be an ever more imporant Index, not only for foresters.