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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detecting forest degradation in the three-north forest shelterbelt in China from multi-scale satellite images | Yu, Tao, Liu, Pengju, Zhang, Qiang, Ren, Yi, Yao, Jingning | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) | |
| Crop Yield Estimation at Gram Panchayat Scale by Integrating Field, Weather and Satellite Data with Crop Simulation Models | Milesi, Cristina, Kukunuri, Mallikarjun | Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Leaf Area Index (LAI), Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity, Reflectance, Albedo, Anisotropy, Shortwave Radiation, Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation | |
| Deep convolutional neural networks for surface coal mines determination from sentinel-2 images | Madhuanand, L., Sadavarte, P., Visschedijk, A.J.H., Denier Van Der Gon, H.A.C., Aben, I., Osei, F.B. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Albedo, Anisotropy | |
| Daily flow simulation in Thailand Part I: Testing a distributed hydrological model with seamless parameter maps based on global data | Wannasin, C., Brauer, C.C., Uijlenhoet, R., van Verseveld, W.J., Weerts, A.H. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Effects of mosaic representation of land use/land cover on skin temperature and energy Fluxes in Noah-MP Land Surface Model Over China | Zhang, Guo, Li, Jianduo, Zhou, Guangsheng, Cai, Xitian, Gao, Wenhua, Peng, Xindong, Chen, Yueli | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Emissivity, Land Surface Temperature | |
| Coupling remote sensing and crop growth model to estimate national wheat yield in Ethiopia | Beyene, Awetahegn Niguse, Zeng, Hongwei, Wu, Bingfang, Zhu, Liang, Gebremicael, Tesfay Gebretsadkan, Zhang, Miao, Bezabh, Temesgen | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Current and near-term advances in Earth observation for ecological | Ustin, Susan L., Middleton, Elizabeth M. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Terrain Elevation, Digital Elevation/Terrain Model (DEM), Topographical Relief Maps, Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation | |
| Cross-ECV consistency at global scale: LAI and FAPAR changes | Mota, Bernardo, Gobron, Nadine, Morgan, Olivier, Cappucci, Fabrizio, Lanconelli, Christian, Robustelli, Monica | Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Leaf Area Index (LAI), Albedo, Anisotropy, Reflectance, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Leaf Characteristics | |
| Cross-scale evaluation of dynamic crop growth in WRF and Noah-MP-Crop | Partridge, Trevor F., Winter, Jonathan M., Kendall, Anthony D., Hyndman, David W. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux | |
| Eco-economic environment coupling based on urban RSEI theory | Lu, Yitong, Li, Minghang | Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Reflectance | |
| Enhanced surface urban heat islands due to divergent urban-rural greening trends | Chen, Chi, Li, Dan, Keenan, Trevor F | Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Emissivity, Land Surface Temperature, Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Population Size | |
| Improving the global MODIS GPP model by optimizing parameters with FLUXNET data | Huang, Xiaojuan, Xiao, Jingfeng, Wang, Xufeng, Ma, Mingguo | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Indias commitments to increase tree and forest coverConsequences for water supply and agriculture production within the central Indian Highlands | Clark, Benjamin, DeFries, Ruth, Krishnaswamy, Jagdish | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux | |
| Improving modeling of ecosystem gross primary productivity through | Yang, Dong, Xu, Xianli, Xiao, Fengjin, Xu, Chaohao, Luo, Wei, Tao, Lizhi | 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), Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity | |
| Identifying vulnerable populations and transmission pathways by | Price, Thomas Ryan Vernon, Barua, Sepul Kanti | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Reflectance, Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity | |
| Impacts of alternate wetting and drying and delayed flood rice irrigation on growing season evapotranspiration | Reavis, Colby W., Suvocarev, Kosana, Reba, Michele L., Runkle, Benjamin R.K. | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar) | |
| Impacts of vegetation properties and temperature characteristics on species richness patterns in drylandsCase study from Xinjiang | Zhang, Chunyan, Li, Liping, Guan, Yanning, Cai, Danlu, Chen, Hong, Bian, Xiaolin, Guo, Shan | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity | |
| Impacts of juniper woody plant encroachment into grasslands on local | Wang, Jie, Xiao, Xiangming, Basara, Jeffrey, Wu, Xiaocui, Bajgain, Rajen, Qin, Yuanwei, Doughty, Russell B., III, Berrien Moore | Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux, Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Leaf Area Index (LAI), Albedo, Anisotropy | |
| Impacts of land use/land cover distributions and vegetation amount on land surface temperature simulation in East China | Pan, Yongjie, Gao, Yanhong, Li, Suosuo | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity | |
| Impacts of climate extremes on ecosystem metrics in southwest China | Shao, Hui, Zhang, Yuandong, Gu, Fengxue, Shi, Chunming, Miao, Ning, Liu, Shirong | 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 | |
| Hotter and drier climate made the Mediterranean Europe and Northern Africa region a shrubbier landscape | Fang, Wei, Yi, Chuixiang, Chen, Deliang, Xu, Peipei, Hendrey, George, Krakauer, Nir, Jensen, Katherine, Gao, Shan, Lin, Zihan, Lam, Gabriella, Zhang, Qin, Zhou, Tao | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity | |
| Grass modelling in data-limited areas by incorporating MODIS data products | Huang, Xiao, Zhao, Gang, Zorn, Conrad, Tao, Fulu, Ni, Shaoqiang, Zhang, Wenyuan, Tu, Tongbi, Hoglind, Mats | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux | |
| Gross primary productivity of Brazilian Savanna (Cerrado) estimated by different remote sensing-based models | Biudes, Marcelo Sacardi, Vourlitis, George Louis, Velasque, Maisa Caldas Souza, Machado, Nadja Gomes, Danelichen, Victor Hugo de Morais, Pavao, Vagner Marques, Arruda, Paulo Henrique Zanella, Nogueira, Jose de Souza | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Reflectance, Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity | |
| Mapping tree diversity in the tropical forest region of Choco-Colombia | Fagua, J Camilo, Jantz, Patrick, Burns, Patrick, Massey, Richard, Buitrago, Jeiner Y, Saatchi, Sassan, Hakkenberg, Christopher, Goetz, Scott J | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), RADAR IMAGERY, Terrain Elevation, Topographical Relief Maps, Digital Elevation/Terrain Model (DEM), Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity | |
| Long time series of daily evapotranspiration in China based on the SEBAL model and multisource images and validation | Cheng, Minghan, Jiao, Xiyun, Li, Binbin, Yu, Xun, Shao, Mingchao, Jin, Xiuliang | Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux |