BOREAS TE-23: Forest Canopy and Understory Map Plots

BOREAS TE-23 map plot data provides detailed architectural measurements from 50m x 60m forest plots at tower flux sites during a 1994 summer campaign. The tabular ASCII files contain stand characteristics, tree map locations with DBH, geometric measurements for a tree subset, and understory cover maps. This dataset supports the characterization of canopy structure and ground cover for boreal forest ecosystem studies.

Use Cases

• Modeling forest canopy light interception based on detailed tree height and crown dimension measurements.
• Calibrating remote sensing products using georeferenced tree locations and stand density data.
• Analyzing understory vegetation dynamics from the mapped understory cover data.
• Studying tree allometry and stand structure relationships using combined DBH, height, and crown data.

Strengths

• Data collection followed a standardized protocol across all BOREAS forested tower flux and selected auxiliary sites.
• Includes detailed geometric measurements for a subset of trees, suggesting a multi-scale sampling approach.
• Cross-platform presence on datagov and nasa_earthdata indicates established use and curation.

Limitations

• Column names and exact row counts are unspecified across all sources, limiting precise data understanding.
• Metadata shows a conflict: one source lists a last updated date of 2026-04-10, while another indicates the data collection ended in 1994.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.

Provenance

Source

BOREAS TE-23 team, organized under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Collection Method

Field measurements collected from mapped plots at BOREAS tower flux and auxiliary sites.

Time Range

May to August 1994

Freshness

2026-04-10 05:51:09.067442 (datagov), though this may reflect metadata update rather than data revision.

Geography

BOREAS forested tower flux sites and selected auxiliary sites (boreal forest regions).