OTTER: Spectral Reflectance of Cut Conifer Foliage

NASA's OTTER project measured the bi-directional spectral reflectance of cut conifer foliage across age classes, species, and sites using a LICOR instrument. The dataset likely contains tabular and geospatial data on how light reflects from foliage, a key variable for remote sensing. It is available across multiple platforms, including Data.gov and NASA Earthdata, indicating its established use in ecological and atmospheric research.

Use Cases

• Calibrating satellite vegetation indices based on ground-truth spectral measurements.
• Modeling radiative transfer in forest canopies using bi-directional reflectance data.
• Studying species-specific differences in foliage optical properties.
• Assessing the impact of foliage age on spectral signatures for ecological monitoring.

Strengths

• Produced by NASA, a leading authority in earth science and remote sensing.
• Available on multiple major data platforms (Data.gov, NASA Earthdata), suggesting validation and reuse.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing, including column names, row counts, and file sizes.
• Sources conflict on the last update date, with one listing 1990 and another listing a future date of 2026, creating uncertainty about data currency.
• The 'other-license-specified' license on Data.gov lacks immediate clarity on reuse terms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Measured by LICOR instrument on cut conifer foliage as part of the OTTER project.

Freshness

1990-06-21 23:59:59.999000