• TERN Geospatial Catalogue
  •   Search
  •   Map

Australian land surface phenology dataset at 500m resolution

The Australian Phenology Product is a continental data set that allows the quantitative analysis of Australia’s phenology derived from MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) data using an algorithm designed to accommodate Australian conditions, described in Xie et al. 2023. The product can be used to characterize phenological cycles of greening and browning and quantify the cycles’ inter and intra annual variability from 2003 to 2018 across Australia. Phenological cycles are defined as a period of EVI-measured greening and browning that may occur at any time of the year, extend across the end of a year, skip a year (not occur for one or multiple years) or occur more than once a year. Multiple phenological cycles within a year can occur in the form of double cropping in agricultural areas or be caused by a-seasonal rain events in water limited environments. Based on per-pixel greenness trajectories measured by MODIS EVI, phenological cycle curves were modelled and their key properties in the form of phenological curve metrics were derived including: the first and second minimum point, peak, start and end of cycle; length of cycle, and; the amplitude of the cycle. Integrated EVI under the curve between the start and end of the cycle time of each cycle is calculated as a proxy of productivity.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2019-11-01
Date (Publication)
2024-09-06
Date (Revision)
2025-12-11
Edition
1.0

Publisher

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Author

University of Western Australia - Xie, Qiaoyun ()
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia
Crawley
Western Australia
6009
Australia

Author

University of Technology Sydney - Huete, Alfredo (Distinguished Professor)
15 Broadway, Ultimo, 2007, New South Wales, Australia
Ultimo
New South Wales
2007
Australia
Website
https://www.tern.org.au/

Purpose
Land Surface Phenology (LSP) provides valuable information to scientists and practitioners interested in vegetation and ecosystem response to climate variability such as drought and land use change. Specific applications of LSP information include for example the quantification of crop yields, wildfire fuel accumulation, ecosystem resilience and health and land surface modelling.
Credit
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Credit
The development of the Australian Phenology Product was funded by the AusCover Facility of the Australian Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) and supported by ARC-DP1115479 grant entitled "Integrating remote sensing, landscape flux measurements, and phenology to understand the impacts of climate change on Australian landscapes" (Huete, CI).
Status
Completed

Point of contact

University of Western Australia - Xie, Qiaoyun ()
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley
Western Australia
6009
Australia

Point of contact

University of Technology Sydney - Huete, Alfredo (Distinguished Professor)
15 Broadway, Ultimo, 2007, New South Wales, Australia
15 Broadway
Ultimo
New South Wales
2007
Australia

Spatial resolution

Spatial resolution
500
Topic category
  • Environment
  • Imagery base maps earth cover

Extent

Description
Australia
N
S
E
W


Temporal extent

Time period
2003-01-01 2018-12-31
Title
Land surface phenology indicators retrieved across diverse ecosystems using a modified threshold algorithm
Website
Land surface phenology indicators retrieved across diverse ecosystems using a modified threshold algorithm

Related documentation

Title
Land surface phenology retrievals for arid and semi-arid ecosystems
Website
Land surface phenology retrievals for arid and semi-arid ecosystems

Related documentation

Maintenance and update frequency
Unknown
GCMD Science Keywords
  • PLANT PHENOLOGY
ANZSRC Fields of Research
  • Climate change impacts and adaptation
  • Terrestrial ecology
TERN Platform Vocabulary
  • Aqua
TERN Instrument Vocabulary
  • MODIS
TERN Parameter Vocabulary
  • plant phenology
  • Day
QUDT Units of Measure
  • Day
GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
  • 500 meters - < 1 km
GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
  • Monthly - < Annual
Keywords (Discipline)
  • Remote sensing
  • Vegetation dynamics
  • Climate change

Resource constraints

Use limitation
The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
File name
88x31.png
File description
CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
File type
png
Linkage
https://w3id.org/tern/static/cc-by/88x31.png

Title
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
Alternate title
CC-BY
Edition
4.0
Website
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints
TERN services are provided on an "as-is" and "as available" basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. <br />Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN. <br /><br />Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting
Other constraints
Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}.

Resource constraints

Classification
Unclassified

Distribution Information

Distribution format

Distributor

Distributor

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia
Indooroopilly
Queensland
4068
Australia
OnLine resource
Cloud Optimised GeoTiFFs

OnLine resource
Landscape Data Visualiser

OnLine resource
Readme

OnLine resource
landscapes:modis_phenology

Australian land surface phenology dataset at 500m resolution

OnLine resource
ro-crate-metadata.json

Data quality info

Hierarchy level
Dataset
Other
Please refer to the method papers for details.

Report

Result

Statement
Validation of seasonal/phenologic parameters is accomplished across a wide range of Australian landscapes through comparisons with finer resolution (half-hourly/ daily) OzFlux eddy covariance tower measures of gross primary productivity (GPP). Tower measurements derived photosynthetic activity (GPP) primarily relate to onset, duration, magnitude, and growing season length. At regional levels, we plan validation activities focused on the use of phenocam networks that capture the seasonal dynamics and species-level phenology of overstory and understory plant functional types. This is being prototyped in NSW and thenceforth to be expanded to TERN supersites, and transects.

Resource lineage

Statement
Python programming was used to download and process data. Phenology extraction algorithm was designed by Qiaoyun Xie and described in Xie et al. 2022.
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Title
Land surface phenology indicators retrieved across diverse ecosystems using a modified threshold algorithm
Website
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X23001425

Method documentation

Title
Land surface phenology retrievals for arid and semi-arid ecosystems
Website
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924271622000211

Method documentation

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/EPSG:4326

Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 2D

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/2bb0c81a-41a9-434c-b87a-db0301cb52fb

Title
TERN GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Point of contact

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Type of resource

Resource scope
Dataset
Metadata linkage
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/2bb0c81a-41a9-434c-b87a-db0301cb52fb

Point-of-truth metadata URL

Date info (Creation)
2019-11-01T00:00:00.000000+00:00
Date info (Revision)
2025-12-11T22:51:17.606264+00:00

Metadata standard

Title
ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
Edition
1

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
Edition
1.0

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
Edition
1.0
Title
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
Date (published)
2021
Edition
1.0

Identifier

Code
10.5281/zenodo.5652221
Website
https://github.com/ternaustralia/TERN-ISO19115/releases/tag/v1.0

 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

ANZSRC Fields of Research
Climate change impacts and adaptation Terrestrial ecology
GCMD Science Keywords
PLANT PHENOLOGY

Provided by

Share on social sites

Access to the portal
Read here the full details and access to the data.

Associated resources

Not available


  •   About
  •   Github
  •