Copernicus publishes dataset - researchers from our department contribute

By susanna [dot] olsson [at] nateko [dot] lu [dot] se (Susanna Olsson) - published 13 September 2021

Copernicus has published a dataset that shows growing seasons and vegetation productivity in great detail. Researchers from the department - Lars Eklundh, Zhanzhang Cai and Hongxiao Jin - have developed the algorithms that form the basis of the databases.

Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS), a service that provides geographic data from satellites, has recently published a large dataset covering the entire European continent. The published data will play an important role in the European work with environmental monitoring and management policies and the development goals, as well as the assessment of climatic and anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems.

The data set shows vegetation productivity over the growing seasons. It covers 2017-2020 and will be updated yearly from 2022 onwards. It is based on the Plant Phenology Index (PPI), a vegetation index developed by Lars Eklundh, Zhangzhang Cai and Hongxiao Jin. The researchers in Lund have also developed TIMESAT, which is used for time series adaptation of data.

Copernicus is the European Union's Earth Observation Programme. They chose the Lund researchers' algorithms, as these are adapted to study vegetation phenology, i.e. the change in vegetation over the seasons.