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Fractional Cover - MODIS, CSIRO algorithm

Vegetation Fractional Cover represents the exposed proportion of Photosynthetic Vegetation (PV), Non-Photosynthetic Vegetation (NPV) and Bare Soil (BS) within each pixel. The sum of the three fractions is 100% (+/- 3%) and shown in Red/Green/Blue colors. In forested canopies the photosynthetic or non-photosynthetic portions of trees may obscure those of the grass layer and/or bare soil. This product is derived from the MODIS Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance product (MCD43A4) collection 6 and has 500 meters spatial resolution. A suite of derivative products are also produced including monthly fractional cover, total vegetation cover (PV+NPV), and anomaly of total cover against the time series. Monthly: The monthly product is aggregated from the 8-day composites using the medoid method. Anomaly: represents the difference between total vegetation cover (PV+NPV) in a given month and the mean total vegetation cover for that month in all years available, expressed in units of cover. For example, if the mean vegetation cover in January (2001-current year) was 40% and the vegetation cover for the pixel in January 2018 was 30%, the anomaly for the pixel in Jan 2018 would be -10%. Decile: represents the ranking (in ten value intervals) for the total vegetation cover in a given month in relation to the vegetation cover in that month for all years in the time-series. MODIS fractional cover has been validated for Australia.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2019-11-11
Date (Publication)
2020-03-10
Date (Revision)
2025-12-10
Edition
1.0

Publisher

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

Author

CSIRO Land and Water (2014-2022) - Guerschman, Juan Pablo (Senior Research Scientist)
147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, Western Australia, 6014, Australia
Floreat
Western Australia
6014
Australia
Website
https://www.tern.org.au/

Purpose
This project will bring the enhancements to the ground cover monitoring tool (the RaPP Map) needed to assist in enabling the NRM agencies and individuals to undertake monthly reporting on ground cover level change. Proposed enhancements include: Continuity of the tool data quality increase the number of outputs required by NRMs improve the functionality as determined by the users This project is closely aligned with the Ground cover training and target setting (GTTS) project being proposed by John Leys from the NSW OEH which focuses on the training in the use of the tool to NRM agencies. This project is also contributing to the international engagement via the GEOGLAM initiative which aims at improving the information on agricultural productivity.
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
Funding was provided by CSIRO (Australia), Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) (Australia), and the Australian Government Department of Agriculture.
Status
On going

Point of contact

CSIRO Land and Water (2014-2022) - Guerschman, Juan Pablo (Senior Research Scientist)
147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, Western Australia, 6014, Australia
147 Underwood Avenue
Floreat
Western Australia
6014
Australia
Topic category
  • Imagery base maps earth cover

Extent

Description
Global dataset on fractional cover, CSIRO algorithm.
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Temporal extent

Time period
2001-01-01
Title
Guerschman, J. P., & Hill, M. J. (2018). Calibration and validation of the Australian fractional cover product for MODIS collection 6. Remote Sensing Letters, 9(7), 696–705.
Website
Guerschman, J. P., & Hill, M. J. (2018). Calibration and validation of the Australian fractional cover product for MODIS collection 6. Remote Sensing Letters, 9(7), 696–705.

Related documentation

Title
Guerschman et al (2015). Assessing the effects of site heterogeneity and soil properties when unmixing photosynthetic vegetation, non-photosynthetic vegetation and bare soil fractions from Landsat and MODIS data. Remote Sensing of Environment
Website
Guerschman et al (2015). Assessing the effects of site heterogeneity and soil properties when unmixing photosynthetic vegetation, non-photosynthetic vegetation and bare soil fractions from Landsat and MODIS data. Remote Sensing of Environment

Related documentation

Title
Gill, T., Heidenreich, S. and Guerschman, J (2014). MODIS monthly fractional cover: product creation and distribution. The Joint Remote Sensing Research Program Publication Series. St. Lucia, QLD, Australia: The University of Queensland.
Website
Gill, T., Heidenreich, S. and Guerschman, J (2014). MODIS monthly fractional cover: product creation and distribution. The Joint Remote Sensing Research Program Publication Series. St. Lucia, QLD, Australia: The University of Queensland.

Related documentation

Title
Flood, N. (2013). Seasonal Composite Landsat TM/ETM+ Images Using the Medoid (a Multi-Dimensional Median). Remote Sensing 5, 6481–6500.
Website
Flood, N. (2013). Seasonal Composite Landsat TM/ETM+ Images Using the Medoid (a Multi-Dimensional Median). Remote Sensing 5, 6481–6500.

Related documentation

Title
README file - additional detail including the naming convention for the data files
Website
README file - additional detail including the naming convention for the data files

Related documentation

Maintenance and update frequency
Monthly
GCMD Science Keywords
  • LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY
  • LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT
  • CONSERVATION
  • SOILS
ANZSRC Fields of Research
  • Natural resource management
  • Conservation and biodiversity
  • Agricultural land management
  • Human impacts of climate change and human adaptation
  • Environmental management
  • Landscape ecology
  • Land capability and soil productivity
TERN Platform Vocabulary
  • Terra
  • Aqua
TERN Instrument Vocabulary
  • MODIS
TERN Parameter Vocabulary
  • photosynthetic vegetation fraction
  • Unitless
  • bare soil fraction
  • Unitless
  • non-photosynthetic vegetation fraction
  • Unitless
QUDT Units of Measure
  • Unitless
  • Unitless
  • Unitless
GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
  • 250 meters - < 500 meters
GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
  • Daily - < Weekly

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

National Computational Infrastructure, Australian National University
10 East Road, Acton, 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Acton
Australian Capital Territory
2601
Australia
OnLine resource
NCI Thredds Server

OnLine resource
modis_tot_cov_monthly

WMS Service for Total Fractional Cover

Distribution Information

Distribution format

Distributor

Distributor

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia
Indooroopilly
Queensland
4068
Australia
OnLine resource
GEOGLAM RAPP map (includes WMS sources)

OnLine resource
CSIRO Project Site

OnLine resource
Landscape Data Visualiser - Fractional Cover - MODIS, CSIRO algorithm

OnLine resource
ro-crate-metadata.json

Data quality info

Hierarchy level
Dataset
Other
Version 3.0: Fractional cover was derived using a linear unmixing methodology (Guerschman et al. 2015). The method uses all 7 MODIS bands and adds log transforms and band interaction terms to account for non-linearities in the spectral mixing. A cross-validation step was also included to select the optimal number of singular values to avoid over-fitting. The calibration and validation steps used 1171 field observations across Australia.

Report

Result

Statement
Overall, the model fitted and applied to MCD43A4 fractional cover has a root mean square error (RMSE) of 12.9%, 18.1% and 16.6% for the PV, NPV and BS fractions respectively (percentage cover) Version 3.1: ("v310") Same as Version 3.0 with the following modifications: 1- input data changed to MODIS Collection 6.0 (MCD43A4.006) (see source). 2- calibration dataset expanded to include ~3022 field measurement sites accross Australia. 3- overall accuracy improved to an RMSE of 11.3%, 16.1% and 14.7% for the PV, NPV and BS fractions respectively.

Resource lineage

Statement
Monthly vegetation cover is calculated from the 8-day composites using a medoid method as described in Gill et al. Monthly anomalies show the difference between total vegetation cover (PV+NPV) in a given month and the mean total vegetation cover for that month in all years available\nMonthly deciles show the decile (ranking) for the total vegetation cover in a given month in relation to the vegetation cover in that month for all years in the time series. Version 3.0: Fractional cover was derived using a linear unmixing methodology (Guerschman et al. 2015). Version 3.1: ("v310") Same as Version 3.0 with the following modifications: 1- input data changed to MODIS Collection 6.0 (MCD43A4.006) (see source). 2- calibration dataset expanded to include ~3022 field measurement sites accross Australia. 3- overall accuracy improved to an RMSE of 11.3%, 16.1% and 14.7% for the PV, NPV and BS fractions respectively.
Hierarchy level
Dataset

Process step

Description
Time Period Composition Mediod Method: The medoid is a multi-dimensional analogue of the median. It can be applied to creating a time-period composite of images, for example a seasonal composite, by selecting a single date for each pixel that minimizes the sum of the distances to the band pixel values of all other dates in the set. Source: Flood, N. (2013). Seasonal Composite Landsat TM/ETM+ Images Using the Medoid (a Multi-Dimensional Median). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs5126481

Process step

Description
Linear Spectral Unmixing Method: Spectral unmixing is the process of decomposing the spectral signature of a mixed pixel into a set of endmembers representing the types of objects present in the pixel, and their corresponding abundances. Source: Shi, C., &amp; Wang, L. (2014). Incorporating spatial information in spectral unmixing: A review. Remote Sensing of Environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2014.03.034

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/EPSG:4326

Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 2D

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/a6ef2480-e397-4c42-9706-3865dd6ca380

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/a6ef2480-e397-4c42-9706-3865dd6ca380

Point-of-truth metadata URL

Date info (Creation)
2019-11-11T00:00:00.000000+00:00
Date info (Revision)
2025-12-10T10:32:18.693357+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

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Keywords

ANZSRC Fields of Research
Agricultural land management Conservation and biodiversity Environmental management Human impacts of climate change and human adaptation Land capability and soil productivity Landscape ecology Natural resource management
GCMD Science Keywords
CONSERVATION LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT SOILS

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