NASA EOS LAND VAL Project

Description

This data set provides field measurements of diameter, tree height, and crown dimensions for 1,513 trees in 30 plots at the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica. Fourteen of these plots were in undisturbed primary forest, six were in primary forest which had been selectively logged, seven were secondary forests, and three were abandoned pastures reverting to forest. The diameter and height data were used to calculate aboveground biomass for each of the 30 plots. The crown measurements were used to estimate a vertical profile for each plot, showing the vegetation volume in 1 meter increments from the ground to the top of the canopy. There are three comma-delimited data files and two shapefiles with this data set. The files contain the measurements and calculated biomass for the individual stems as well as the summary data at the plot level.

Maryland_Temperature_Humidity_1319

This data set describes the temperature and relative humidity at 12 locations around Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt MD at 15 minute intervals between November 2013 and November 2015. These data were collected to study the impact of surface type on heating in a campus setting and to improve the understanding of urban heating and potential mitigation strategies on the campus scale. Sensors were mounted on posts at 2 m above surface and placed on 7 different surface types around the centre: asphalt parking lot, bright surface roof, grass field, forest, and stormwater mitigation features (bio-retention pond and rain garden). Data were also recorded in an office setting and a garage, both pre- and post-deployment, for calibration purposes. This dataset could be used to validate satellite-based study or could be used as a stand-alone study of the impact of surface type on heating in a campus setting.

LAI_Canada_816

This data set provides local LAI maps for the selected measured sites in Canada. These derived maps may also be useful for validating other LAI maps over these same sites given that the areas are protected from disturbance. The maps should be used for the given period of validity. The LAI data are suitable for use in modeling the carbon, water, energy, energy and trace gas exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere at regional scales. The data set may also be useful for monitoring changes in the land surface.The Leaf Area Index (LAI) maps are at 30-m resolution for the selected sites. LAI is defined here as half the total (all-sided) live foliage area per unit horizontal projected ground surface area. Overstory LAI corresponds to all tree foliage except for treeless areas where it corresponds to total foliage. The algorithms were developed from ground measurements and Landsat TM and ETM+ images (Fernandes et. al., 2003). A mask was developed using the Landsat ETM+/TM5 image and available land cover map to identify only those areas with land cover belonging to the sample land cover classes and with Landsat ETM+/TM5 spectral reflectance values that fell within the convex hull of the spectral reflectance values over the plots. LAI was mapped within the masked region using the Landsat ETM+/TM5 image and the developed transfer function. The final LAI map was scaled by a factor of 20 (offset 0). The LAI maps are in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF).

LAI_VALERI_Canada_829

This data set provide local LAI maps for the Larose (Ontario) site in Canada. These derived maps may also be useful for validating other LAI maps over this same site given that the area is protected from disturbance. The maps should be used for the given period of validity. The LAI data are suitable for use in modeling the carbon, water, energy, energy and trace gas exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere at regional scales. The dataset may also be useful for monitoring changes in the land surface. A complete description of producing the maps for the Larose site and the ground measurement campaign is provide in the companion document (Larose2003FTReport.pdf (link)).The Leaf Area Index (LAI) maps are at 30-m resolution for the 3x3-km Larose site. LAI is defined here as half the total (all-sided) live foliage area per unit horizontal projected ground surface area. Overstory LAI corresponds to all tree foliage except for treeless areas where it corresponds to total foliage. The algorithms were developed from ground measurements and Landsat TM and ETM+ images (Fernandes et. al., 2003). A mask was developed using the Landsat ETM+/TM5 image and available land cover maps to identify only those areas with land cover belonging to the sample land cover classes and with Landsat ETM+/TM5 spectral reflectance values that fell within the convex hull of the spectral reflectance values over the plots. LAI was mapped within the masked region using the Landsat ETM+/TM5 image and the developed transfer function. The final LAI map was scaled by a factor of 20 (offset 0). The LAI maps are in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF).The VALERI project (Validation of Land European Remote sensing Instruments) is dedicated to the validation of the products derived from medium resolution satellite sensors ( http://www.avignon.inra.fr/valeri/ ). The objectives of the VALERI project are: (1) to evaluate the absolute accuracy of the biophysical products (LAI, fAPAR, fCover) derived from large swath sensors (e.g., AVHRR, POLDER, VEGETATION, SEAWIFS, MSG, MERIS, AATSR, MODIS, MISR, GLI) using a range of possible algorithms; and (2) to inter-compare the products derived from different sensors and algorithms. For this purpose, the VALERI project has developed a network of sites distributed over the Earth’s surface and a methodology designed to directly measure the biophysical variables of interest at proper spatial and temporal scales.

sar_subsets_993

This data set provides Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images for 42 selected sites from various terrestrial ecology and meteorological monitoring networks including FLUXNET, Ameriflux, Long Term Ecological Research (LTER), and the Greenland Climate Network (GC-Net). The data set contains at least one image for all 42 sites, and six sites have multiple images. See Table 1 for the sites and the temporal range of the available images. The scenes are in GeoTIFF format in Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM), WGS-84 projection, and 15-meter resolution. The SAR images are subset scenes of approximately 60 km x 70 km that include an established site in one of the monitoring networks. The spatial resolution of all scenes is 15 meters. These scenes are distributed as geotif files with appropriate projection information defined within the file.The acquisition mode for all data is the Fine Beam Double Polarization or FBD with the HH/HV polarization. The HH and HV channels are distributed as 3 channels to allow for an intuitive image display. The HH band is displayed in the red and blue channels and the HV band is displayed in the green channel. For some images only single polarization is available; these images are distributed as grayscale images. The source of the data is the PALSAR (Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar) sensor flying on the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS). The PALSAR data are in dual Polarization, HH+HV, mode. Bands HH (red and blue) and Band-HV (green) can be used to visualize land use patterns. The resulting images show vegetation in shades of green and barren land in shades of pink or purple.

SoilSCAPE_1339

This data set contains in-situ soil moisture profile and soil temperature data collected at 20-minute intervals at SoilSCAPE (Soil moisture Sensing Controller and oPtimal Estimator) project sites in four states (California, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Michigan) in the United States. SoilSCAPE used wireless sensor technology to acquire high temporal resolution soil moisture and temperature data at up to 12 sites over varying durations since August 2011. At its maximum, the network consisted of over 200 wireless sensor installations (nodes), with a range of 6 to 27 nodes per site. The soil moisture sensors (EC-5 and 5-TM from Decagon Devices) were installed at three to four depths, nominally at 5, 20, and 50 cm below the surface. Soil conditions (e.g., hard soil or rocks) may have limited sensor placement. Temperature sensors were installed at 5 cm depth at six of the sites. Data collection started in August 2011 and continues at eight sites through the present. The data enables estimation of local-scale soil moisture at high temporal resolution and validation of remote sensing estimates of soil moisture at regional (airborne, e.g. NASA's Airborne Microwave Observation of Subcanopy and Subsurface Mission - AirMOSS) and national (spaceborne, e.g. NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive - SMAP) scales.

SoilSCAPE_V2_2049

This dataset contains in-situ soil moisture profile and soil temperature data collected at 30-minute intervals at SoilSCAPE (Soil moisture Sensing Controller and oPtimal Estimator) project sites since 2021 in the United States and New Zealand. The SoilSCAPE network has used wireless sensor technology to acquire high temporal resolution soil moisture and temperature data over varying durations since 2011. Since 2021, the SoilSCAPE has upgraded the two previously active sites in Arizona and added several new sites in the United States and New Zealand. These new sites typically use the METER Teros-12 soil moisture sensor. At its maximum, the new network consisted of 57 wireless sensor installations (nodes), with a range of 6 to 8 nodes per site. Each SoilSCAPE site contains multiple wireless end-devices (EDs). Each ED supports up to five soil moisture probes typically installed at 5, 10, 20, and 30 cm below the surface. Sites in Arizona have soil moisture probes installed at up to 75 cm below the surface. Soil conditions (e.g., hard soil or rocks) may have limited sensor placement. The data enables estimation of local-scale soil moisture at high temporal resolution and validation of remote sensing estimates of soil moisture at regional and national (e.g. NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System - CYGNSS and Soil Moisture Active Passive - SMAP) scales. The data are provided in NetCDF format.

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How to Cite

NASA EOS LAND VAL Project was accessed on DATE from https://registry.opendata.aws/nasa-eos-land-val.