The overall goal of the BigFoot Project was to support the validation of land products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) onboard NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) satellite Terra. Reflectance data from MODIS were used to produce several science products including land cover, leaf area index (LAI), and net primary production (NPP).

To validate these products, BigFoot combined ground measurements, additional high-resolution remote-sensing data, and ecosystem process models at nine flux tower sites representing different biomes to evaluate the effects of the spatial and temporal patterns of ecosystem characteristics on MODIS products.

An NPP/GPP validation summary product was developed for each of the nine BigFoot sites. Each summary contains images and figures associated with creating the BigFoot NPP and GPP products, comparing them to MODIS products, and assessing the causes of differences.

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BigFoot characterized up to a 7 x 7 km area (49 MODIS pixels) surrounding the CO2 flux towers located at each of the nine sites. Each site is representative of one or two distinct biomes, including the Arctic tundra; boreal evergreen needleleaf forest; temperate cropland, grassland, and deciduous broadleaf forest; desert grassland and shrubland. BigFoot investigators collected multi-year, in situ measurements of ecosystem structure and functional characteristics related to the terrestrial carbon cycle.

The BigFoot project gathered field data for selected sites in North America from 1999 to 2003. Data collected and derived for varying time periods at six sites includes FPAR, nitrogen content, allometric equations, root biomass, LAI, tree biomass, soil respiration, NPP, landcover images, and vegetation inventories. Supplemental information includes detailed site and plot locations and plot photographs for two sites.

For more details on the BigFoot Project, please visit the BigFoot website http://www.fsl.orst.edu/larse/bigfoot/index.html or the MODIS Land Validation web site http://landval.gsfc.nasa.gov/MODIS/index.html. BigFoot was funded by NASA's Terrestrial Ecology Program.