The 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). The BigFoot project began in 1999,concluded in 2003, and was funded by NASA's Terrestrial Ecology Program.

To validate these products, BigFoot combined ground measurements, 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.

The ORNL DAAC Bigfoot Data archive includes the following:

• Field Data
• Gross Primary Production (GPP)
• Land Cover
• Leaf Area Index (LAI)
• Net Primary Production (NPP)

The following BigFoot resources are maintained by the ORNL DAAC:

• BigFoot GPP and NPP Summaries, 2000-2004
• BigFoot Field Manual, 1999