Ground-measured Massachusetts forest tree data
What it measures. Hands-on forest measurements collected on the ground: a tree inventory, physical tree traits, how dense the leaf canopy is (leaf area index), and estimated plant biomass, plus photos.
How it's made. Gathered by field crews near Petersham, Massachusetts in 2022, sampling over 500 trees across roughly 45 species during the SMAPVEX19-22 campaign.
How & where you'd use it. Serves as ground-truth for checking satellite estimates of soil moisture in forested areas, and supports forest ecology research.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2022-04-20 → 2022-08-01
- Measured byGROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS (CAMERAS, LICOR PLANT CANOPY ANALYZER)
- Processing levelLevel NA
- Spatial extent-72.33, 42.32, -71.91, 42.72
- FormatsCSV, Shapefile
- StatusCOMPLETE
What you can do with it
- Map vegetation, forests and biomass
- Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
- Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description
The SMAPVEX19-22 Massachusetts Field data (SV19MA_FOR) consists of forest tree inventory, biophysical, leaf area index (LAI), and estimated biomass data as well as photos collected between April and August 2022 in the vicinity of Petersham, Massachusetts during the SMAPVEX19-22 (Soil Moisture Active Passive Validation Experiment 2019-2022) field campaign. The location was chosen due to its forested land cover, as SMAPVEX19-22 aims to validate satellite derived soil moisture estimates in forested areas. Over 500 trees of approximately 45 different species were sampled.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="SV19MA_FOR",
version="1",
bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9), # your area (W,S,E,N)
temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"), # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results) # stream straight from NSIDC_CPRDBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Search data by spatial and/or temporal ranges or file name. Choose from various download options, including a Python script. GET DATA
- A Python library to search and access NASA Earth science data with just a few lines of code GET DATA
- Search and order NASA Earth Science data using spatial and temporal filters. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets. GET DATA
- Quickly download a few files using a web browser, or access data through a command-line utility such as WGET. GET DATA
- Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- SMAPVEX19-22 Massachusetts Field Measured Forest Tree Inventory, Biophysical Data, Leaf Area Index, and Estimated Biomass, Version 1 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION