LBA-ECO LC-19: Soil and Vegetation Measurements from Brazilian Cerrado and Forest Sites

61 CSV files contain field measurements from 23 research areas in Brazil, collected during June and July 2002. The data includes soil physical and chemical properties, rooting depth and weight, leaf area index (LAI), plant area index (PAI), biomass, fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (fPAR), and ground-based reflectance measurements of soil and litter samples. These sites were located in intensely stressed areas undergoing rapid land use conversion from forest and cerrado-transition biomes.

Use Cases

• Modeling carbon stocks and ecosystem productivity based on biomass and leaf area index measurements.
• Analyzing the relationship between soil chemistry and vegetation health in transitional biomes.
• Calibrating remote sensing data using ground-based fPAR and reflectance measurements.
• Studying the effects of rapid land-use change on soil bulk density and rooting characteristics.

Strengths

• Contains a multi-faceted suite of 7 distinct measurement types across soil and vegetation.
• Spatially extensive, covering 23 distinct research areas across four major Brazilian sites.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA and government portals indicates established use and validation.

Limitations

• Column names and specific data structure are not documented in the provided metadata.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2002 vs. 2026) suggest metadata may not reflect actual data currency.
• The dataset is a snapshot from a single two-month period in 2002, limiting temporal analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Field measurements collected from research sites.

Time Range

2002-06 to 2002-07

Freshness

2026-04-10 01:33:55.902543 (from datagov, but conflicts with the 2002 collection date)

Geography

Brazil, specifically sites in Brasília National Park, Águas Emendadas Ecological Station, Cangacu Research Center (Tocantins), and Tapajós National Forest (Pará)