This data set is an expanded version of the Costa et al. (2000) data set and consists of a single grid with values of 1 for cells within the basins and 0 for cells outside. The resolution of the data set is 5 x 5 min (approximately 9 x 9 km). The area of this data set is consistent with the study area of the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) in South America. The data file is in ASCII GRID format. [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]lba_reg_basin ]

The Vegetation Species and Cover Abundance Data Set documents the species present at the FIFE staff data measurement sites. Percent cover is estimated for each species at approximately the time of the IFC's. Disturbances occur over a variety of spatial and temporal scales in North American grasslands, and interactions of these different disturbances affect community structure. Two types of disturbance commonly occur over large spatial scales in grasslands, namely, fire and grazing. Analysis of percent cover of dominant species indicated that composition and heterogeneity was significantly affected by grazing intensity and burning. The effects of disturbances on community structure are not additive, and may not be extrapolated from studies of single factors. The interpretation of patterns in natural communities is clearly scale dependent, and processes may act differently when viewed from different spatial or temporal scales. The effects of scale may not always be predictable; therefore, an understanding of pattern and process at one hierarchical level may not provide useful information about pattern and process at a different hierarchical level. [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]FIFE_VEG_SPEC ]

This dataset is derived from Russian forest fire imagery from the National Forest Fire Center of Russia archive that was collected by the Center of Remote Sensing, Institute of Solar Terrestrial Physics, Irkutsk, Russia for the 1998 and 1999 fire seasons. The data are vector (point) maps of forest fire locations (1998 and 1999) in ArcView shapefile format. [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]rlc_forest_fires ]

The purpose of the SNF study was to improve our understanding of the relationship between remotely sensed observations and important biophysical parameters in the boreal forest. A key element of the experiment was the development of methodologies to measure forest stand characteristics to determine values of importance to both remote sensing and ecology. Parameters studied were biomass, leaf area index, above ground net primary productivity, bark area index and ground coverage by vegetation. Thirty two quaking aspen and thirty one black spruce sites were studied. Sites were chosen in uniform stands of aspen or spruce. The dominant species in the site constituted over 80 percent, and usually over 95 percent, of the total tree density and basal area. Aspen stands were chosen to represent the full range of age and stem density of essentially pure aspen, of nearly complete canopy closure, and greater than two meters in height. Spruce stands ranged from very sparse stands on bog sites, to dense, closed stands on more productive peatlands. Use of multiple plots within each site allowed estimation of the importance of spatial variation in stand parameters. Within each plot, all woody stems greater than two meters in height were recorded by species and the following dimensions were measured: diameter breast height, height of the tree, height of the first live branch, and depth of crown. For each plot, a two meter diameter subplot was defined at the center of each plot. Within this subplot, the percent of ground coverage by plants under one meter in height was determined by species. These data, averaged for the five plots in each site, are presented in the SNF Forest Understory Cover Data (Table) data set in tabular format, e.g. plant species with a count for that species at each site. The same data are presented in this data set (i.e., SNF Forest Understory Cover Data) but are arranged with a row for each species and site and a percent ground coverage for each combination. [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]SNF_UND_CVR ]

The NPP Database contains documented field measurements of NPP for global terrestrial sites compiled from published literature and other extant data sources. The NPP Database contains biomass dynamics, climate, and site-characteristics data georeferenced to each intensive site. A major goal of the data compilation is to use consistent and standard well-documented methods to estimate NPP from the field data. Other important components of the database include a summary, investigator contact information, and a list of key references for each site. As far as possible, the original principal investigator or his/her successor has been contacted to review the data and documentation. The NPP Database currently contains detailed data for over 60 intensive study sites. A majority of these sites are grasslands, the remainder being tropical forests, boreal forests, and tundra study sites. Some combination of above-ground annual peak live biomass data and/or seasonal biomass dynamics data are available for all sites. Many sites also have data on below-ground biomass and/or turnover. Estimates of net primary productivity are included, where available, for individual sites, and as part of the NPP Summary tables. Climate and soils data are available for all sites in varying degrees of detail. The sites have been grouped according to vegetation maps based upon Bailey ecoregions, Holdridge Life-Zones, Matthews vegetation classes, and Olson World Ecosystem Complexes. Previously compiled multi-site data sets of georeferenced NPP estimates are also provided. NPP estimates are available from a number of different collections, containing more than 1700 sites but with less information available for each individual site as compared to the intensive sites. Records for these sites typically include an NPP value, latitude and longitude, original source of the data, and sometimes information on vegetation type, management, soils, and local climate. More information on the entire Net Primary Productivity Project can be found at the NPP home page, with links to further details on individual study sites or multi-site collections. Users are encouraged to browse these Web pages to find details of original studies, methodologies, and original research contacts. NPP data are available on-line from the ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. Data Citation: Cite the data sets using the following reference format: Author, P. A., and M. B. Author. Year. Data Set Title. Available on-line from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. For example: Williamson, P., and J. Pitman. 1999. NPP Grassland: Beacon Hill, U.K. 1972-1973. Available on-line from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]NPP_NLS ]

Net primary production of a saline grassland was determined at the Montecillo study site belonging to Colegio de Postgraduados, Chapingo, near Mexico City, from 1984 to 1994. Monthly dynamics of live biomass and dead matter were monitored, above and below ground, together with monthly litter bag estimates of decomposition rates above and below ground. The method for calculating net primary production accounted for simultaneous growth and death, and carbon flows to all trophic levels. Work was carried out under the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) Project on "Primary productivity of grass ecosystems of the tropics" and continued under subsequent UNEP and UK-ODA (Overseas Development Administration) sponsored international projects. Climate data for this site are also available: see Any Other Relevant Information in section 11 of this document. More information on the entire Net Primary Production Project can be found at the NPP homepage. [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]NPP_MNT ]

This data set consists of a southern African subset of the Global Land One-Kilometer Base Elevation (GLOBE) digital elevation model (DEM) data in both ASCII GRID and binary image file formats. The Global Land One-Kilometer Base Elevation (GLOBE) digital elevation model (DEM) is a global data set with horizontal grid spacing of 30 arc-seconds (0.008333... degrees) in latitude and longitude, resulting in dimensions of 21,600 rows and 43,200 columns. At the Equator a degree of latitude is about 111 kilometers. GLOBE has 120 values per degree, giving GLOBE slightly better than 1-km gridding at the Equator, with progressively finer gridding longitudinally toward the Poles. The horizontal coordinate system is seconds of latitude and longitude referenced to World Geodetic System 84 (WGS84). The vertical units represent elevation in meters above Mean Sea Level. The elevation values range from -407 to 8,752 meters on land. In GLOBE Version 1.0, ocean areas have been masked as no data and have been assigned a value of -500. Because of the nature of the raster structure of the DEM, small islands in the ocean less than approximately 1 square kilometer (specifically, those that are not characterized by at least one 30 grid cell and/or do not have coastlines digitized into Digital Chart of the World or World Vector Shoreline) may not be represented. More information about the procedure used to create the southern African subset is described in the accompanying file ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/safari2k/almanac/globe_dem/comp/so_africa_dem_readme.pdf. [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]s2k_globe_dem ]

The BOREAS TE-23 team collected hemispherical photographs in support of its efforts to characterize and interpret information on estimates of canopy architecture and radiative transfer properties for most BOREAS study sites. Various OA, OBS, OJP, YJP, and YA sites in the boreal forest were measured from May to August 1994. The hemispherical photographs were used to derive values of LAI, Leaf angle, Gap fraction, and Clumping index. This documentation describes these derived values. The derived data are stored in tabular ASCII files. The hemispherical photographs are stored in the original set of 42 CD-ROMs, that were supplied by TE-23. [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]BOREAS_TE23ARCH ]

Productivity of a semi-desert steppe was determined at the Dzhanybek Research Station in Kazakhstan, between 1955 and 1989. A long time series of peak live biomass measurements are available from 1955 to 1989 (excluding 1976). More detailed data on the seasonal dynamics of above ground live biomass and dead matter are available for 1985-1989. These data are part of a series of grassland data sets recently assembled and checked by Dr. Tagir Gilmanov, which cover a wide range of climate and "continentality" (increasing maximum summer temperatures, decreasing precipitation) from the North-West to the South-East of the Commonwealth of Independent States (former USSR). Climate data for this site are also available: see Any Other Relevant Information in section 11 of this document. More information on the entire Net Primary Production Project can be found at the NPP homepage. [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]NPP_DZH ]

The data set consists of a subset for the study area of the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) in South America (i.e., longitude 85 deg to 30 deg W, latitude 25 deg S to 10 deg N) of the 5-min resolution Global Potential Vegetation data set developed by Navin Ramankutty and Jon Foley at the University of Wisconsin. Data are available in both ASCII GRID and binary image file formats.The original map was derived at a 5-min resolution and contains natural vegetation classified into 15 types. This data set is derived mainly from the DISCover land cover data set, with the regions dominated by land use filled using the vegetation data set of Haxeltine and Prentice (1996). The data set represents the world's potential vegetation (i.e., vegetation that would most likely exist now in the absence of human activities), and not necessarily natural pre-settlement vegetation. This is because human activities such as fire suppression have mo dified the stages of succession at which vegetation communities exist.More information can be found at: ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/lba/land_use_change/potential_vegetation/comp/README/ [ This document was provided by NASA's Global Change Master Directory. For more information on the source of this metadata please visit http://gcmd.nasa.gov/r/geoss/[GCMD]lba_pot_vege ]