BOREAS RSS-18: AVIRIS-Classic Hyperspectral Radiance Imagery

NASA's AVIRIS-Classic instrument captured 224 spectral bands of radiance data over Canadian boreal forests on August 14, 1996. The dataset consists of 66 calibrated image scenes across seven flight lines, each with 20-meter spatial resolution and an 11 km swath width. This Level 1B data was collected for the Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study to understand energy and gas exchanges between the forest and atmosphere.

Use Cases

• [Atmospheric gas exchange modeling] based on [spectrally calibrated radiance measurements across 400-2500 nm]
• [Boreal forest reflectance analysis] based on [hyperspectral imagery with 20-meter spatial resolution]
• [Sensor calibration validation] based on [spectrally, radiometrically, and geometrically calibrated measurements]
• [Geospatial data fusion] based on [navigation information and instrument-coordinate georeferencing]

Strengths

• High spectral resolution with 224 contiguous bands at approximately 10-nm intervals
• Precise spatial calibration with 20-meter ground sampling distance and 1 milliradian field of view
• Comprehensive coverage with 66 scenes across seven flight lines up to 800 km in length

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is unclear as column names are unknown across all platforms
• Data freshness is low with primary collection in 1996, despite a 2026 metadata update on one platform
• Data format is non-standard, provided in binary files with mixed metadata formats

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by the AVIRIS-Classic pushbroom spectral mapping system deployed on NASA's ER-2 high altitude aircraft.

Time Range

1996-08-14

Freshness

1996-08-14 (primary data collection), with metadata last updated 2026-03-13 on datagov.

Geography

Near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada (boreal forests of central Canada).