ECOSTRESS: Global Water Use Efficiency of Plants at 70m Resolution

The ECOSTRESS mission, attached to the International Space Station, measures plant temperature globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. The ECO_L4T_WUE Version 2 product provides Water Use Efficiency data at a 70-meter spatial resolution, calculated by dividing Gross Primary Production by transpiration estimates. This data is produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and was last updated on March 13, 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling ecosystem carbon and water fluxes based on the Water Use Efficiency (WUE) metric.
• Monitoring regional plant water stress and drought impacts based on thermal radiometer data.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of agricultural productivity based on the 70-meter resolution global tiles.
• Validating and improving land surface models using the derived Gross Primary Production and transpiration layers.

Strengths

• Provides a specific Water Use Efficiency metric derived from Gross Primary Production and transpiration.
• Offers global coverage between 52° N and 52° S latitudes at a 70-meter spatial resolution.
• Data is available in Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format, facilitating cloud-based analysis.
• Includes ancillary layers such as cloud mask and water mask for data quality assessment.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the ECOSTRESS instrument on the International Space Station, processed to Level 4.

Time Range

Data acquisition began after launch on June 29, 2018, with known gaps in 2018-2019 and 2020.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:08:55.966912; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage between 52° N and 52° S latitudes, tiled using a modified Military Grid Reference System.