LBA-ECO CD-05: Forest Understory Fuel Loads in Paragominas, Brazil

LBA-ECO CD-05 contains estimates of understory fuel loads (forest litter) at six locations near Paragominas in Northeastern Amazonia. Samples were collected from three forest conditions—primary, logged, and burned forest—with volumes and weights provided by size and condition class. Means and standard errors are reported from three transects per forest-condition class, based on the planar transect method.

Use Cases

• Modeling wildfire risk based on forest litter volume and weight estimates.
• Comparing fuel load differences between primary, logged, and burned forest conditions.
• Calibrating remote sensing data with ground-based forest litter measurements.

Strengths

• Provides structured, comparative data across three distinct forest conditions (primary, logged, burned).
• Reports statistical summaries (means and standard errors) derived from three transects per condition class.
• Dataset is hosted by NASA and appears on multiple data platforms, indicating a level of institutional curation.

Limitations

• A Data Quality Statement flags missing or incomplete data and metadata, diminishing usability.
• Column names and exact row counts are not provided in the available metadata.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2001 vs. 2026) create uncertainty about data currency.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the LBA-ECO project.

Collection Method

Field sampling using the planar transect method (Brown 1971).

Time Range

2001

Freshness

2026-04-10 (datagov), but with a conflicting date of 2001-01-01 (nasa_earthdata).

Geography

Six locations near Paragominas, Para, Brazil, in Northeastern Amazonia.