BOREAS SPOT Imagery: Scaled At-Sensor Radiance for Land Cover

60-by-60-km portions of the BOREAS NSA and SSA are covered by these SPOT images, collected from 17-Apr-1994 to 30-Aug-1996. The data provides spatially extensive information including radiant energy, detailed land cover, and biophysical parameter maps such as FPAR and LAI. These images were acquired to fill temporal gaps in the Landsat TM image collection for remote sensing research.

Use Cases

• Land cover classification based on detailed land cover information
• Biophysical parameter estimation (e.g., LAI, FPAR) based on radiant energy maps
• Temporal gap-filling for Landsat TM time series analysis
• Radiative transfer modeling based on scaled at-sensor radiance data

Strengths

• Provides a specific temporal coverage from April 1994 to August 1996
• Covers defined 60-by-60-km spatial extents for the BOREAS NSA and SSA study areas
• Includes companion files such as an image inventory and example thumbnails

Limitations

• Conflicting last-updated metadata: one source lists 2026-03-13, another lists 1996-08-30
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unknown
• Data is available only in a legacy binary image format, which may require specialized tools for processing

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); images collected and supplied by CCRS (Canada Centre for Remote Sensing) to BORIS.

Collection Method

Remotely sensed SPOT satellite imagery, processed to level-3s (scaled at-sensor radiance) in LGSOWG format.

Time Range

17-Apr-1994 to 30-Aug-1996

Freshness

2026-03-13 07:24:08.974923 (most recent update from datagov, though this conflicts with the original data end date)

Geography

60-by-60-km portions of the BOREAS Northern Study Area (NSA) and Southern Study Area (SSA)