Fractional Cover - MODIS, CSIRO algorithm

Created 25/06/2025

Updated 25/06/2025

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.

Files and APIs

Additional Info

Field Value
Title Fractional Cover - MODIS, CSIRO algorithm
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/4650081c-a7e9-4599-ab99-b738fcad1619
Contact Point
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network�s Data Discovery
Juan.Guerschman@csiro.au
Reference Period 01/01/2001
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        -180.0,
        -90.0
      ],
      [
        180.0,
        -90.0
      ],
      [
        180.0,
        90.0
      ],
      [
        -180.0,
        90.0
      ],
      [
        -180.0,
        -90.0
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network "Fractional Cover - MODIS, CSIRO algorithm". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/fractional-cover-modis-csiro-algorithm