The ORNL DAAC and the LBA DIS announce the release of three data sets from the LC-01 Land Use-Land Change team, a component of the LBA-ECO Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA).
The research was conducted in in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon, in the area known as the northern Oriente of Ecuador, in the four Intensive Study Areas (ISA) of the University of North Carolina's Carolina Population Center (CPC) Ecuador Projects, for all three data sets.
These data sets were prepared by R.E. Bilsborrow, S.J. Walsh, and B.G. Frizelle:
- LBA-ECO LC-01 Landsat TM Land Use/Land Cover, Northern Ecuadorian Amazon: 1986-1999 .This data set contains Landsat TM imagery for the years 1986, 1989, 1996, and 1999, that have been classified into four land use/land cover (LULC) classes: Forest, Non-Forest Vegetation, Urban/Barren, and Water; and a fifth class of Clouds/Shadows. The resolution of the data is 30 meters. There are 12 image files with this data set.
- LBA-ECO LC-01 Topographic Data for Intensive Study Areas, Northern Ecuadorian Amazon. This data set contains topographic/geomorphological data. Study area boundaries were developed directly from 1:50,000 topographical maps. Point elevation features and 20-meter elevation contours were digitized from these same maps. Digital elevation models (DEMs) were derived from these elevation data and, in turn, terrain aspect and terrain slope were derived from the digital elevation models. These data are provided in ESRI shapefile and GeoTiff formats.
- LBA-ECO LC-01 SRTM 90-Meter Digital Elevation Model, Northern Ecuadorian Amazon. This data set provides 90-meter resolution Digital Elevation Model data. The topographic data were derived from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data in February 2000. There is one image in GeoTiff format that is a subset for the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon region.
LBA is an international research initiative under the leadership of Brazil. The project focuses on the climatological, ecological, biogeochemical, and hydrological functions of Amazonia; the impact of land use change on these functions; and the interactions between Amazonia and the Earth system. The LBA-ECO component, which is funded by NASA, focuses on the question: "How do tropical forest conversion, regrowth, and selective logging influence carbon storage, nutrient dynamics, trace gas fluxes, and the prospect for sustainable land use in Amazonia?"
See the LBA Project page for further information about the study and to access associated data and documentation maintained by the ORNL DAAC.
The ORNL DAAC is a NASA-funded data center archiving and distributing terrestrial ecology and biogeochemical dynamics data. The LBA Data and Information System (LBA-DIS) has been developed by INPE with NASA's participation.