The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC) has released new Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer–Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG) L1B/L2 and field observation datasets collected for the BioSCape project. These include airborne data acquired with the AVIRIS-NG instrument in late 2023, providing Level 1B calibrated radiance alongside Level 2A ortho-corrected surface reflectance, uncertainty metrics, and atmospheric retrieval parameters projected to Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grids.
These remote sensing products are paired with field observations, including late-2023 ground-truth surveys capturing vegetation composition, structure, and woody invasive species across native fynbos habitats. The data also include a comprehensive, long-term catalog of more than 150,000 foliar, structural, and elemental trait measurements, coupled with visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectra across more than 1,000 plant species, for remote sensing calibration and ecological validation.
BioSCape is a research project that uses remote sensing and field data to understand the distribution, function, and importance of biodiversity on land and in the water around the Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR). Located in southwestern South Africa along the Atlantic coast, the GFCR is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.
More information on these datasets and others like them can be found on the BioSCape project landing page.