How much plant matter covers Massachusetts fields (SMAPVEX)

In plain English

What it measures. Measurements of how much plant matter covers the ground (plant area index) near Petersham, Massachusetts, along with the RGB photographs the values were calculated from. Collected from April 2019 to December 2022.

How it's made. Gathered through on-the-ground fieldwork during the SMAPVEX19-22 campaign, not from a satellite; the values come from analyzing field photos.

How & where you'd use it. Used to check and validate satellite estimates of soil moisture in forested areas, where dense vegetation makes those estimates harder.

What's measured

BIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › VEGETATION INDEX › PLANT AREA INDEX (PAI)

Coverage & cadence

Time span2019-04-01 → 2022-12-01
Measured byGROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS (CAMERAS)
Processing levelLevel Not provided
Spatial extent-72.33, 42.32, -71.91, 42.72
FormatsJPEG, CSV
StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

Map vegetation, forests and biomass
Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
Support habitat and biodiversity studies

Official description

These data consist of plant area index (PAI) and the RGB images from which the PAI values were derived. Data image files were taken between April 2019 to December 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.

Get the data

sv19ma_pai_access.py

import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SV19MA_PAI",
    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_CPRD

Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.

What's measured

Coverage & cadence

What you can do with it

Get the data

Official links