SwissRad10 provides hourly light availability maps at 10-meter resolution across Switzerland for an entire annual cycle. The dataset includes wall-to-wall coverage and calculates variables like sky-view fraction and direct-beam transmissivity for both leaf-on and leaf-off canopy conditions near forests. It was generated by ENVIDAT using the Canopy Radiation Model (CanRad) with lidar data from swissSURFACE3D.
Use Cases
- Model forest growth and photosynthesis based on hourly direct and diffuse light availability.
- Assess solar panel placement and energy yield using terrain-only direct-beam transmissivity data.
- Study microclimate variations in mountainous regions based on sky-view fraction maps.
- Simulate seasonal canopy effects on ground light using leaf-on and leaf-off condition data.
Strengths
- Hourly temporal resolution across an entire annual cycle.
- 10-meter spatial resolution with wall-to-wall coverage across Switzerland.
- Includes both canopy-condition-specific and terrain-only light availability data.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
Provenance
- Source
- ENVIDAT
- Collection Method
- Calculated using the synthetic hemispheric image-based ray-tracing Canopy Radiation Model (CanRad) with airborne lidar and terrain data from swissSURFACE3D.
- Time Range
- An entire annual cycle.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2024-01-01 00:00:00; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Switzerland.