ECOSTRESS: Global Water Use Efficiency for Plants at 70-Meter Resolution

Global data between 52° N and 52° S latitudes from the ECOSTRESS instrument on the International Space Station. The ECO_L4G_WUE Version 2 product provides instantaneous Water Use Efficiency (WUE) estimates at a 70-meter spatial resolution, calculated by dividing Gross Primary Production (GPP) by transpiration. The data is produced by NASA and was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling ecosystem carbon and water fluxes based on the Water Use Efficiency (WUE) metric.
• Assessing regional plant water stress and drought impacts based on the derived transpiration data.
• Calibrating or validating land surface models using the Gross Primary Production (GPP) layer.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of agricultural productivity based on the gridded WUE and GPP data.
• Masking out clouds and water bodies for land analysis using the provided cloud and water mask layers.

Strengths

• Provides a specific 70-meter spatial resolution on a globally snapped 0.0006° grid.
• Includes multiple data layers: WUE, GPP, cloud mask, and water mask within each granule.
• Data acquisition and known issues, including instrument anomalies and recovery, are documented.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data generated from the ECOSTRESS instrument on the ISS, using BESS GPP and PT-JPL-SM transpiration models.

Time Range

Acquisitions began after launch on June 29, 2018, with operations ongoing.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 02:51:45.893580; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage between 52° N and 52° S latitudes.