Research
The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), will monitor one of the most basic processes in living plants: the loss of water through the tiny pores in leaves. When people lose water through their pores, the process is called sweating. The related process in plants is known as transpiration. Because water that evaporates from soil around plants also affects the amount of water that plants can use, ECOSTRESS will measure combined evaporation and transpiration, known as evapotranspiration (ET). The original ECOSTRESS mission used these ET measurements to address 3 questions:
- How is the terrestrial biosphere responding to changes in water availability?
- How do changes in diurnal vegetation water stress impact the global carbon cycle?
- Can agricultural vulnerability be reduced through advanced monitoring of agricultural water consumptive use and improved drought estimation?
ECOSTRESS is meeting these objectives by measuring the thermal infrared brightness temperatures (BT) of plants and using that information to derive their evapotranspiration (ET). These measurements are being made globally between +/- 52 degrees latitude. As of January 2025 over half a million ECOSTRESS scenes, each approximately 400 x 400 km in size have been acquired.
ECOSTRESS continues to provide the highest spatial measurements of the surface brightness temperature available from Space. These measurements are now used for a broad range of science and applications including:
- Food security and agriculture: maximizing food production and more efficient irrigation practices (crop per drop)
- Wildfire and Volcanic hazards: Understanding the dynamics of volcanoes and wildfires
- Improving urban development and infrastructure: Keeping cities cool.
- Critical minerals: Discovering critical mineral resources
The technology developed by ECOSTRESS is now being used to develop the NASA SBG-TIR mission.
| First ROSES Selection - Science Team | ||||
| Name | Institution | Role | Bio | |
| Kerry Cawse-Nicholson | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
Evaluating a CONUS-Wide disALEXI Evapotranspiration Product |
kerry-anne.cawse-nicholson@jpl.nasa.gov | Link |
| Christine Lee | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
Evaluation of ECOSTRESS Surface Temperature over Inland Waters for Aquatic Ecosystem Applications |
christine.m.lee@jpl.nasa.gov | Link |
| Nicholas DeFelice | ICAHN School of Medicine at Mount Sinai |
Developing Spatial Real-Time Forecasts of Mosquito-Borne Diseases |
nicholas.defelice@mssm.edu | Link |
| Christopher Doughty | Northern Arizona University |
Merging ECOSTRESS with Field Data in the Highest Uncertainty Water Use Efficiency Regions in the World |
chris.doughty@nau.edu | Link |
| Christian Frankenberg | California Institute of Technology |
Exploiting Diurnal Cycles to Evaluate Vegetation Responses to Heat and Drought Stress |
cfranken@caltech.edu | Link |
| Christoph Hecker | Universiteit Twente |
Investigating Dynamic Thermal Processes to Optimize Geothermal Hotspot Detection |
c.a.hecker@utwente.nl | Link |
| Chuanmin Hu | University of South Florida, Tampa |
Thermal Stress in South Florida Estuaries: A Multi-Sensor Assessment |
huc@usf.edu | Link |
| Soe Myint | Texas State University |
Changing Landscapes, Urban Heat Island and the Effects on City Water Conservation Policy |
bno41@txstate.edu | -- |
| Daniel Otis | University of South Florida, Tampa |
Examining the Relation Between Biodiversity and Surface Temperature Regimes in Localized Coastal Upwelling Zones Using ECOSTRESS |
dotis@mail.usf.edu | Link |
| Helen Poulos | Wesleyan University |
Evaluating the Potential of ECOSTRESS for Predicting Wildfire Effects on Plant Community Structure and Water Relations in an Arizona Sky Island Pine-Oak Forest |
hpoulos@wesleyan.edu | Link |
| David Wethey | University of South Carolina |
ECOSTRESS- Heat and Desiccation Risk Prediction in Intertidal Shellfisheries |
wethey@biol.sc.edu | Link |
| Mary Whelan | Rutgers University, New Brunswick |
New Estimates of Terrestrial Carbon and Water Fluxes by Combining the Carbonyl Sulfide Stomatal Conductance Tracer Framework and High Resolution Surface Data |
mary.whelan@rutgers.edu | Link |
|
Dennis Baldocchi |
University of California, Berkeley |
How Much Water is Evaporated Across California?: An Assessment Using a MesoNetwork of Eddy Covariance Sites, a Biophysical Model Forced with Satellite Remote Sensing and ECOSTRESS Data |
baldocchi@berkeley.edu | Link |
| Jingfeng Xiao | University of New Hampshire, Durham |
Understanding Diurnal Cycles of Plant Water Use and Carbon Uptake with Existing and New Products Based on ECOSTRESS, MODIS, and FLUXNET |
j.xiao@unh.edu | Link |
| Second ROSES Selection - Science Team | ||||
| Scott Allen | University of Nevada, Reno |
Water-Balance Succession Following Wildfires in Great-Basin Shrublands |
scottallen@unr.edu | Link |
| Devendra Amatya | USDA Forest Service |
Towards Enhancements in ECOSTRESS Products for Quantifying Ecosystem Evapotranspiration and its Partitioning for Key Southern US Forests |
devendra.m.amatya@usda.gov | -- |
| Josh Fisher | Chapman University |
I.C.E. C.R.E.A.M.: Integrating Communication of ECOSTRESS into Community Research, Education, Applications, and Media |
jbfisher@chapman.edu | -- |
| Bo-Cai Gao | Naval Research Laboratory |
Quantifying ECOSTRESS LST Errors Resulting From Unmasked Cirrus Clouds and Developing Techniques to Remove Thin Cirrus Effects In Surface Temperature Data Products |
gao@nrl.navy.mil | -- |
| Kaiyu Guan | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
Redefining Droughts for the U.S. Corn Belt: Quantification of the Impacts of Soil Aridity and Atmospheric Aridity on Agroecosystems Using ECOSTRESS LST and ET Products |
kaiyug@illinois.edu | -- |
| Gregory Halverson | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
Thermally Sensitive ECOSTRESS Evapotranspiration Model Ensemble Evaluation and Development |
gregory.h.halverson@jpl.nasa.gov | Link |
| Brian Hornbuckle | Iowa State University |
Remotely Sensing Crop Stress in the U.S. Corn Belt |
bkh@iastate.edu | -- |
| Leiqiu Hu | University of Alabama in Huntsville |
Harnessing ECOSTRESS to Assess the Diurnal Dynamics of the Urban Thermal Environments and Their Impacts on Heat-Related Health Risks |
lh0063@uah.edu | -- |
| Madeleine Pascolini-Campbell | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
An Investigation of Fire-Driven Changes in Landscape Water Use: A Diurnal, Multi-Ecoregion Perspective |
madeleine.a.pascolini-campbell@jpl.nasa.gov | Link |
| Benjamin Poulter | NASA GSFC |
Quantifying Global Ecosystem Vulnerability to Drought with ECOSTRESS |
benjamin.poulter@nasa.gov | -- |
| Temuulen Sankey | Northern Arizona University |
Semi-Arid Forest Restoration Treatments Improve Drought Resiliency: ECOSTRESS-Based Assessment |
Temuulen.Sankey@nau.edu | -- |
| Nick Steiner | The City College of New York |
Remote Sensing of Urban Ecosystem Function in the Megacity: Fine Resolution Characterization of Water Stress in New York City Urban Forests with ECOSTRESS |
nsteiner@ccny.cuny.edu | -- |
| Allison Steiner | University of Michigan |
Using ECOSTRESS to Understand the Role of Diffuse Light on Vegetation |
alsteine@umich.edu | -- |
| David Wethey | University of South Carolina |
High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature from ECOSTRESS |
wethey@biol.sc.edu | Link |
| Yun Yang | Mississippi State University |
Water-Use and Land-Cover Change Detection Using ECOSTRESS and OpenET |
yy285@msstate.edu | -- |
The Science Team Members can be viewed here.