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VIC_Landcover_MODIS_NLCD_INEGI

This project contains the scripts used to created MODIS-based land surface parameters (MOD-LSP) (Bohn and Vivoni, 2019a) for the VIC model (Liang et al., 1994) release 5.0 and later (Hamman et al., 2018). These parameters are intended for use in VIC's "image" driver.

This project had several goals:

  1. update the land cover classification underlying the land surface parameters widely used in VIC modeling over North America
  2. provide a set of parameters that can be used in land cover change studies
  3. supply estimates of canopy fraction for the recently developed canopy fraction feature in VIC (Bohn and Vivoni, 2016)
  4. provide improved, spatially explicit estimates of time-varying surface properties (LAI, canopy fraction, albedo) over the domain
  5. provide values of these properties for a wider range of classes such as urban, which had been ignored in prior parameter sets

The VIC land surface parameters consist of gridded values of: soil properties, fractional area coverage of land cover classes, and physical properties of the surface and vegetation structure for each class. Thus, to achieve the project's goals required new land cover classifications (both to update the map and to obtain multi-decadal snapshots of land cover change) and gridded observations of surface properties. These surface properties needed to be aggregated over the pixels of the land cover maps to yield separate spatial average values for each land cover class in each grid cell. Soil properties were not changed, but rather were taken from the Livneh et al (2015) ("L2015" hereafter) dataset.

The chosen domain was the continental US, Mexico, and southern Canada (the CONUS + Mexico, or CONUS_MX domain), at 1/16 degree (6 km) spatial resolution. This is the domain used in the L2015 gridded daily meteorology dataset, and these parameters are designed to be compatible with that dataset.

Processing Stages

The processing stages covered by the scripts in this dataset are:

  1. Downloading of MODIS data
  2. Aggregation of MODIS land surface properties over the desired land cover classification
  3. Gap-filling
  4. Replacement of the L2015 land cover fractions and land surface properties with the MOD-LSP values (but retaining the original soil parameters)

In addition, there are various utility scripts (e.g., clipping to smaller region of interest, subsampling, etc).

Inputs:

Land Cover Classifications:

  • MOD12Q1.005 MODIS-based classification of Friedl et al (2010) at 500-m resolution, for years 2001-2013. This can be downloaded from the MODIS site.
  • NLCD_INEGI land cover classifications (Bohn and Vivoni 2019b) for years 1992, 2001, and 2011. These are a combination of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD; Homer et al., 2015) over the United States and a modification of the INEGI Uso del Suelo y Vegetacion (INEGI, 2014) classification over Mexico that was harmonized with the NLCD legend. These are available for download at Zenodo.

Land Surface Properties:

MODIS phenology available from MODIS site

  • MOD15A2H.006 (2000-02-18 to 2001-06-26) and MCD15A2H.006 (2001-07-04 to end of 2016) Leaf Area Index (LAI) (Myneni et al., 2002)
  • MOD43A3.006 White Sky Albedo from shortwave broadband (Schaaf et al., 2002)
  • MOD13A1.006 Normalized Different Vegetation Index (NDVI) (Huete et al., 2002)

Miscellaneous Files:

  • NetCDF format VIC-5 image driver domain files compatible with the MOD-LSP domains available on Zenodo as part of the PITRI Precipitation Disaggregation Parameters
  • NetCDF format VIC-5 image driver parameter file from the L2015 simulations (soil parameters were taken directly from this file) available on Zenodo as part of the MOD-LSP VIC parameters
  • Land masks, tables listing land cover classes and class-specific properties (under the data/ directory)

Outputs:

  • Several versions of land cover parameters for the VIC land surface model, available for download from Zenodo (Bohn and Vivoni, 2019a).

These parameter files were designed for use with VIC 5 (image driver). VIC 5 image driver requires a "domain" file to accompany the parameter file. This domain file is also necessary for disaggregating the daily gridded meteorological forcings to hourly for input to VIC via the disaggregating tool MetSim (Bennett et al., 2018). We have provided a domain file compatible with the L2015 forcings and the MOD-LSP parameters, on Zenodo.

Directory Structure:

./

  • License.txt - GNU public license
  • README.md - this file

docs/

  • Procedure.md - Main Procedure; list of processing steps, the scripts that run them, and their usage
  • Procedure_Projected_Land_Cover_Change.md - Procedure for modifying existing VIC parameters to account for future projected land cover change; list of processing steps, the scripts that run them, and their usage
  • Utilities.md - Descriptions of utility scripts, and their usage

examples/ - batch files containing example commands and arguments

data/ - input files other than the land cover classifications or MODIS observations, e.g., masks, tables of class-specific properties

  • CONUS_MX/ - data for CONUS_MX domain
  • USMX/ - data for USMX domain

tools/ - scripts for aggregating MODIS data over land cover maps and generation of VIC parameter files; also general utility scripts

References

  • Bennett, A., J. J. Hamman, B. Nijssen, E. A. Clark, and K. M. Andreadis, 2018: UW-Hydro/MetSim: Version 1.1.0 (version 1.1.0). Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.1256120. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1256120 (Accessed June 7, 2018).
  • Bohn, T. J., and E. R. Vivoni, 2016: Process-based characterization of evapotranspiration sources over the North American monsoon region. Water Resour. Res., 52, 358–384.
  • Bohn, T. J, and E. R. Vivoni, 2019a: MOD-LSP: MODIS-Based Parameters for Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) Model over the Continental US, Mexico, and Southern Canada (Version 1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.2612560. https://zenodo.org/record/2612560.
  • Bohn, T. J, and E. R. Vivoni, 2019b: NLCD_INEGI: Harmonized US-Mexico Land Cover Change Dataset, 1992/2001/2011 (Version 1.1) [Data set]. Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.2591501. https://zenodo.org/record/2591501.
  • Friedl, M. A., D. Sulla-Menashe, B. Tan, A. Schneider, N. Ramankutty, A. Sibley, and X. Huang, 2010: MODIS Collection 5 global land cover: Algorithm refinements and characterization of new datasets. Remote Sens. Environ., 114, 168–182.
  • Hamman, J. J., B. Nijssen, T. J. Bohn, D. R. Gergel, and Y. Mao, 2018: The Variable Infiltration Capacity Model, Version 5 (VIC-5): Infrastructure improvements for new applications and reproducibility. Geosci. Model Dev., 11, 3481–3496.
  • Homer, C. G., and Coauthors, 2015: Completion of the 2011 National Land Cover Database for the conterminous United States - Representing a decade of land cover change information. Photogramm. Eng. Remote Sens., 81, 345–354.
  • Huete, A., K. Didan, T. Miura, E. P. Rodriguez, X. Gao, and L. G. Ferreira, 2002: Overview of the radiometric and biophysical performance of the MODIS vegetation indices. Remote Sens. Environ., 83, 195–213.
  • INEGI, 2014: Conjunto de datos vectoriales de Uso del Suelo y Vegetación, Escala 1:250 000, Serie V (Capa Unión). http://www.inegi.org.mx/geo/contenidos/recnat/usosuelo/ (Accessed October 1, 2015).
  • Liang, X., D. P. Lettenmaier, E. F. Wood, and S. J. Burges, 1994: A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models. J. Geophys. Res. Atmospheres, 99, 14415–14428.
  • Livneh, B., T. J. Bohn, D. W. Pierce, F. Munoz-Arriola, B. Nijssen, R. Vose, D. R. Cayan, and L. Brekke, 2015: A spatially comprehensive, hydrometeorological data set for Mexico, the U.S., and southern Canada 1950–2013. Nat. Sci. Data, 2, 150042, doi:10.1038/sdata.2015.42.
  • Myneni, R., and Coauthors, 2002: Global products of vegetation leaf area and fraction absorbed PAR from year one of MODIS data. Remote Sens. Environ., 83, 214–231.
  • Schaaf, C. B., and Coauthors, 2002: First operational BRDF, albedo nadir reflectance products from MODIS. Remote Sens. Environ., 83, 135–148.