N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180
Description
The MOD15A2H Version 6 data product was decommissioned on July 31, 2023. Users are encouraged to use the MOD15A2H Version 6.1 data product.
The MOD15A2H Version 6 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) combined Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FPAR) product is an 8-day composite dataset with 500 meter (m) pixel size. The algorithm chooses the “best” pixel available from all the acquisitions of the Terra sensor from within the 8-day period.
LAI is defined as the one-sided green leaf area per unit ground area in broadleaf canopies and as one-half the total needle surface area per unit ground area in coniferous canopies. FPAR is defined as the fraction of incident photosynthetically active radiation, 400-700 nanometers (nm), absorbed by the green elements of a vegetation canopy.
Science Datasets (SDSs) in the Level 4 (L4) MOD15A2H product include LAI, FPAR, two quality layers, and standard deviation for LAI and FPAR. Two low resolution browse images, LAI and FPAR, are also available for each MOD15A2H granule.
Known Issues
- For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.
Version Description
Product Summary
Citation
Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.
Copy Citation
Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyushchenko, S., Thau, D., & Moore, R. (2017). Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote Sensing of Environment. MODIS Version 6 Leaf Area Index/FPAR 4-day L5 Global 500m Myneni, R., Y. Knyazikhin, T. Park. MOD15A2H MODIS/Terra Leaf Area Index/FPAR 8-Day L4 Global 500m SIN Grid V006. 2015, distributed by NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC, https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD15A2H.006 Landsat 5/7/8 Collection 1 Surface Reflectance
Landsat Level-2 Surface Reflectance Science Product courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Masek, J.G., Vermote, E.F., Saleous N.E., Wolfe, R., Hall, F.G., Huemmrich, K.F., Gao, F., Kutler, J., and Lim, T-K. (2006). A Landsat surface reflectance dataset for North America, 1990–2000. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters 3(1):68-72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LGRS.2005.857030.
Vermote, E., Justice, C., Claverie, M., & Franch, B. (2016). Preliminary analysis of the performance of the Landsat 8/OLI land surface reflectance product. Remote Sensing of Environment. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2016.04.008. National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD)
Yang, Limin, Jin, Suming, Danielson, Patrick, Homer, Collin G., Gass, L., Bender, S.M., Case, Adam, Costello, C., Dewitz, Jon A., Fry, Joyce A., Funk, M., Granneman, Brian J., Liknes, G.C., Rigge, Matthew B., Xian, George, A new generation of the United States National Land Cover Database—Requirements, research priorities, design, and implementation strategies: ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, v. 146, p. 108–123, at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2018.09.006 Resource Software Recommended: Microsoft Excel,url: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/excel
Resource Title: LAI_training_samples_CONUS.
File Name: LAI_train_samples_CONUS_v0.1.1.csv
Resource Description: This CSV file consists of the training samples for estimating Leaf Area Index based on Landsat surface reflectance images (Collection 1 Tire 1). Each sample has a MODIS LAI value and corresponding surface reflectance derived from Landsat pixels within the MODIS pixel. Contact: Yanghui Kang (kangyanghui@gmail.com)
Column description
UID: Unique identifier. Format: LATITUDE_LONGITUDE_SENSOR_PATHROW_DATE
Landsat_ID: Landsat image ID
Date: Landsat image date in "YYYYMMDD"
Latitude: Latitude (WGS84) of the MODIS LAI pixel center
Longitude: Longitude (WGS84) of the MODIS LAI pixel center
MODIS_LAI: MODIS LAI value in "m2/m2"
MODIS_LAI_std: MODIS LAI standard deviation in "m2/m2"
MODIS_LAI_sat: 0 - MODIS Main (RT) method used no saturation; 1 - MODIS Main (RT) method with saturation
NLCD_class: Majority class code from the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD)
NLCD_frequency: Percentage of the area cover by the majority class from NLCD
Biome: Biome type code mapped from NLCD (see below for more information)
Blue: Landsat surface reflectance in the blue band
Green: Landsat surface reflectance in the green band
Red: Landsat surface reflectance in the red band
Nir: Landsat surface reflectance in the near infrared band
Swir1: Landsat surface reflectance in the shortwave infrared 1 band
Swir2: Landsat surface reflectance in the shortwave infrared 2 band
Sun_zenith: Solar zenith angle from the Landsat image metadata. This is a scene-level value.
Sun_azimuth: Solar azimuth angle from the Landsat image metadata. This is a scene-level value.
NDVI: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index computed from Landsat surface reflectance
EVI: Enhanced Vegetation Index computed from Landsat surface reflectance
NDWI: Normalized Difference Water Index computed from Landsat surface reflectance
GCI: Green Chlorophyll Index = Nir/Green - 1
1 - Deciduous Forest
2 - Evergreen Forest
3 - Mixed Forest
4 - Shrubland
5 - Grassland/Pasture
6 - Cropland
7 - Woody Wetland
8 - Herbaceous Wetland
Reference Dataset:
All data was accessed through Google Earth Engine
Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyushchenko, S., Thau, D., & Moore, R. (2017). Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote Sensing of Environment.
MODIS Version 6 Leaf Area Index/FPAR 4-day L5 Global 500m Myneni, R., Y. Knyazikhin, T. Park. MOD15A2H MODIS/Terra Leaf Area Index/FPAR 8-Day L4 Global 500m SIN Grid V006. 2015, distributed by NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC, https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD15A2H.006
Landsat 5/7/8 Collection 1 Surface Reflectance
Landsat Level-2 Surface Reflectance Science Product courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Masek, J.G., Vermote, E.F., Saleous N.E., Wolfe, R., Hall, F.G., Huemmrich, K.F., Gao, F., Kutler, J., and Lim, T-K. (2006). A Landsat surface reflectance dataset for North America, 1990–2000. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters 3(1):68-72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LGRS.2005.857030.
Vermote, E., Justice, C., Claverie, M., & Franch, B. (2016). Preliminary analysis of the performance of the Landsat 8/OLI land surface reflectance product. Remote Sensing of Environment. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2016.04.008.
National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD)
Yang, Limin, Jin, Suming, Danielson, Patrick, Homer, Collin G., Gass, L., Bender, S.M., Case, Adam, Costello, C., Dewitz, Jon A., Fry, Joyce A., Funk, M., Granneman, Brian J., Liknes, G.C., Rigge, Matthew B., Xian, George, A new generation of the United States National Land Cover Database—Requirements, research priorities, design, and implementation strategies: ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, v. 146, p. 108–123, at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2018.09.006
Resource Software Recommended: Microsoft Excel,url: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/excel}, publisher={ICPSR - Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research}, author={US Department of Agriculture and National Agricultural Library}, year={2026}, language={en} }
File Naming Convention
The file name begins with the Product Short Name (MOD15A2H) followed by the Julian Date of Acquisition formatted as AYYYYDDD (A2002273), the Tile Identifier which is horizontal tile and vertical tile provided as hXXvYY (h20v06), the Version of the data collection (006), the Julian Date and Time of Production designated as YYYYDDDHHMMSS (2015151112325), and the Data Format (hdf).
Documents
USER'S GUIDE
ALGORITHM THEORETICAL BASIS DOCUMENT (ATBD)
DATA PRODUCT SPECIFICATION
PRODUCT QUALITY ASSESSMENT
Publications Citing This Dataset
| Title | Year Sort ascending | Author | Topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spatiotemporal variation in gross primary productivity and their responses to climate in the great lakes region of Sub-Saharan Africa during 20012020 | Kayiranga, Alphonse, Chen, Baozhang, Wang, Fei, Nthangeni, Winny, Dilawar, Adil, Hategekimana, Yves, Zhang, Huifang, Guo, Lifeng | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Reflectance, Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity | |
| Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence trends and mechanisms in different ecosystems in northeastern China | Guo, Meng, Li, Jing, Li, Jianuo, Zhong, Chao, Zhou, Fenfen | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Solar Induced Fluorescence, Chlorophyll, Primary Production, Leaf Characteristics | |
| SPATIAL DOWNSCALING OF SMAP SOIL MOISTURE USING THE MODIS AND SRTM | Mohite, J. D., Sawant, S. A., Pandit, A., Pappula, S. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Albedo, Anisotropy | |
| Seasonal and long-term variations in leaf area of Congolese rainforest | Sun, Yuanheng, Knyazikhin, Yuri, She, Xiaojun, Ni, Xiangnan, Chen, Chi, Ren, Huazhong, Myneni, Ranga B. | Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux, Emissivity, Land Surface Temperature, Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Vegetation | |
| Recent Seasonal Variations in Ecosystem Water Use Efficiency in China's | Liu, Linxin, Zhang, Ke, Chao, Lijun, Ezaz, Gazi Tawfiq, Li, Xi, Forzieri, Giovanni | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) | |
| Response of vegetation ecosystems to flash drought with solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence over the Hai River Basin, China during 2001-2019 | Yao, Tingting, Liu, Suxia, Hu, Shi, Mo, Xingguo | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity | |
| Remote sensing products validated by flux tower data in Amazon Rain Forest | Paca, Victor Hugo da Motta, Espinoza-Davalos, Gonzalo E., da Silva, Rodrigo, Tapajos, Raphael, dos Santos Gaspar, Avner Brasileiro | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity | |
| Respiration regimes in rivers: Partitioning source-specific respiration | Bertuzzo, Enrico, Hotchkiss, Erin R., Argerich, Alba, Kominoski, John S., OviedoVargas, Diana, Savoy, Philip, Scarlett, Rachel, von Schiller, Daniel, Heffernan, James B. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation | |
| Using an object-based machine learning ensemble approach to upscale evapotranspiration measured from eddy covariance towers in a subtropical wetland | Zhang, Caiyun, Brodylo, David, Rahman, Mizanur, Rahman, Md Atiqur, Douglas, Thomas A., Comas, Xavier | Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Reflectance | |
| WaterSmart-GISA web application of a data assimilation model to support irrigation research and decision making | Zhao, Haoteng, Di, Liping, Sun, Ziheng | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Reflectance, Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Surface Soil Moisture | |
| Warming, increase in precipitation, and irrigation enhance greening in High Mountain Asia | Maina, Fadji Zaouna, Kumar, Sujay V., Albergel, Clement, Mahanama, Sarith P. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Snow Cover, Snow Cover | |
| Tropical surface temperature response to vegetation cover changes and the role of drylands | Feldman, Andrew F., Short Gianotti, Daniel J., Dong, Jianzhi, Trigo, Isabel F., Salvucci, Guido D., Entekhabi, Dara | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Emissivity, Land Surface Temperature, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) | |
| Vegetation greening and climate change promote an increase in evapotranspiration across Siberia | Shi, Shangyu, Wang, Ping, Yu, Jingjie | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Use/Land Cover Classification | |
| Wildfire Impacts on Snowpack Phenology in a Changing Climate Within the | Giovando, Jeremy, Niemann, Jeffrey D. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Functional evaluation of digital soil hydraulic property maps through comparison of simulated and remotely sensed maize canopy cover | Kalumba, Mulenga, Dondeyne, Stefaan, Vanuytrecht, Eline, Nyirenda, Edwin, Van Orshoven, Jos | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation | |
| Functional traits and metacommunity theory reveal that habitat filtering | Eyster, Harold N., Srivastava, Diane S., Kreitzman, Maayan, Chan, Kai M. A. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Global land surface 250 m 8 d fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR) product from 2000 to 2021 | Ma, Han, Liang, Shunlin, Xiong, Changhao, Wang, Qian, Jia, Aolin, Li, Bing | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Fine scale variability in Green Vegetation Fraction Over the Southern Great Plains using Sentinel-2 satellite: A case study | Chand, Duli, Berg, Larry K., Tagestad, Jerry D., Putzenlechner, Birgitta, Yang, Zhao, Tai, Sheng-Lun, Fast, Jerome D. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation | |
| Estimating Vegetation Greening Influences on Runoff Signatures Using a Logbased Weighted Ensemble Method | Huang, Qi, Zhang, Yongqiang, Ma, Ning, Post, David | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Albedo, Anisotropy | |
| Global water availability boosted by vegetation-driven changes in atmospheric moisture transport | Cui, Jiangpeng, Lian, Xu, Huntingford, Chris, Gimeno, Luis, Wang, Tao, Ding, Jinzhi, He, Mingzhu, Xu, Hao, Chen, Anping, Gentine, Pierre, Piao, Shilong | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Grazing influences biomass production and protein content of alpine meadows | Jarque-Bascunana, Laia, Calleja, Juan Antonio, Ibanez, Miguel, Bartolome, Jordi, Albanell, Elena, Espunyes, Johan, Galvez-Ceron, Arturo, Lopez-Martin, Josep Maria, Villamuelas, Miriam, Gasso, Diana, Fernandez-Aguilar, Xavier, Colom-Cadena, Andreu, Krumins, Jennifer Adams, Serrano, Emmanuel | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Analysis of the relationship between yield in cereals and remotely sensed fAPAR in the framework of monitoring drought impacts in Europe | Cammalleri, Carmelo, McCormick, Niall, Toreti, Andrea | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Achieving Brazil's Deforestation Target Will Reduce Fire and Deliver Air | Butt, Edward W., Conibear, Luke, Smith, Callum, Baker, Jessica C. A., Rigby, Richard, Knote, Christoph, Spracklen, Dominick V. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| A transiting temperate-subtropical mixed forest: carbon cycle projection | Kim, JiHyun, Kim, Yeonjoo, Kim, Jeongbin, Cho, Kyeungwoo, Hong, Jinkyu, Hong, Je-Woo, Jo, Sungsoo, Park, Chanwoo, Chun, Jung Hwa | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity, Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux | |
| A union of dynamic hydrological modeling and satellite remotely-sensed data for spatiotemporal assessment of sediment yields | Preetha, Pooja, Al-Hamdan, Ashraf | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Reflectance |