Specification
Biomass Proxy
Description
Biomass Proxy is a fusion of microwave and optical satellite imagery, using the advantages of each to accurately estimate relative above-ground crop biomass regardless of cloud cover and at a high spatial resolution (10 m x 10 m). It integrates microwave data from the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-1 satellites and optical images from its Sentinel-2 satellites. Planetary Variables then fuses the output from these combined data sources in an algorithm designed to provide a reliable measurement of crop biomass over agricultural areas under all circumstances. This is a relative measure of biomass, so each pixel value has a value of 0 (low biomass) to 1 (high biomass). The product is provided daily and every day, the user gets a new raster with the data from the most updated direct observation from the day before. Please note that the minimum size of the input field for which we can provide biomass proxy is 1 hectare. Similarly the maximum size accepted for the input field is 2000 hectares. This is a field-specific product which means that each subscription should correspond to an individual agricultural field. Creating one subscription per field (i.e. area occupied by the same crop and sharing management practices) will enable the delivery of values that represent the status of the biomass for this area. In contrast, the inclusion of more than one field in a subscription will result in a mixture of signals and the delivery of data that does not necessarily represent field conditions.
Biomass Proxy |
Key Specification |
|---|---|
Name |
Biomass Proxy |
Unit |
[-] |
Pixel size |
10x10m / 0.000089831117499 degree |
Temporal resolution |
Daily |
Coverage |
Global |
Data availability |
Jan 2019 - present |
Satellites used |
Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 |
Minimum field size |
1 ha |
Maximum field size |
2000 ha |
Available to user |
Every day at 6:00 AM local time |
File format |
GeoTIFF, NetCDF (images), CSV (time series) |
Data delivery |
Planetary Variables API (Subscription) |
For downloading biomass proxy data from the api, the api_name may be selected from the following table
Version |
product api_name |
supported by vandersat api |
|---|---|---|
1.0 |
BIOMASS-PROXY_V1.0_10 |
NO (EOL) * |
2.0 |
BIOMASS-PROXY_V2.0_10 |
NO (EOL) * |
3.0 |
BIOMASS-PROXY_V3.0_10 |
YES ** |
* End of life reached: no longer in production
** Data access primarily supported via the planet subscription api
Image properties
GeoTIFF properties:
Parameter |
Value |
|---|---|
Data type |
uint16 |
Compression |
LZW |
Scale |
0.001 |
Offset |
0 |
Band 1 |
Biomass Proxy |
NoData |
65535 |
NetCDF properties:
Parameter |
Value |
|---|---|
Data type |
uint16 |
Compression |
Zip 6 |
Scale |
0.001 |
Offset |
0 |
Band 1 |
Biomass Proxy |
NoData |
65535 |
Terms of use
Data is property of Planet Labs PBC and may only be used for the purpose specified in the service/data contract.
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2015-2022
Version history
Version 3.0 Sugar Maple
Version 2.0 Langefeld
Version 1.0 Langano