ECOSTRESS: Global Evapotranspiration Data at 70-Meter Resolution

ECOSTRESS, an instrument on the International Space Station, measures plant temperature to assess water use and stress. The ECO_L3T_JET Version 2 product provides 12 layers of data on canopy transpiration, soil evaporation, and related variables, tiled globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes at a 70-meter spatial resolution. This data is produced by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling regional water budgets based on daily evapotranspiration (ETdaily) data.
• Assessing plant water stress and irrigation needs using instantaneous canopy transpiration (STICcanopy) metrics.
• Analyzing soil moisture evaporation patterns from the PTJPLSMsoil layer.
• Masking clouds and water bodies in thermal imagery using the provided cloud and water mask layers.

Strengths

• Provides 12 distinct data layers including ETdaily, ETinstUncertainty, and multiple model outputs.
• Offers a high spatial resolution of 70 meters for detailed analysis.
• Data is tiled using a standardized Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) for consistent global coverage.
• Product is distributed in Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format, which is optimized for cloud access.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Data acquisition experienced gaps and anomalies in 2018-2019 and 2020, as detailed in the known issues.
• Row count and total file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by the ECOSTRESS instrument on the International Space Station using thermal radiometry.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:08:13.973219; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage between 52 degrees North and 52 degrees South latitude.