Articles | Volume 10, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-173-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-173-2018
25 Jan 2018
 | 25 Jan 2018

Webcam network and image database for studies of phenological changes of vegetation and snow cover in Finland, image time series from 2014 to 2016

Mikko Peltoniemi, Mika Aurela, Kristin Böttcher, Pasi Kolari, John Loehr, Jouni Karhu, Maiju Linkosalmi, Cemal Melih Tanis, Juha-Pekka Tuovinen, and Ali Nadir Arslan

Abstract. In recent years, monitoring of the status of ecosystems using low-cost web (IP) or time lapse cameras has received wide interest. With broad spatial coverage and high temporal resolution, networked cameras can provide information about snow cover and vegetation status, serve as ground truths to Earth observations and be useful for gap-filling of cloudy areas in Earth observation time series. Networked cameras can also play an important role in supplementing laborious phenological field surveys and citizen science projects, which also suffer from observer-dependent observation bias. We established a network of digital surveillance cameras for automated monitoring of phenological activity of vegetation and snow cover in the boreal ecosystems of Finland. Cameras were mounted at 14 sites, each site having 1–3 cameras. Here, we document the network, basic camera information and access to images in the permanent data repository (http://www.zenodo.org/communities/phenology_camera/). Individual DOI-referenced image time series consist of half-hourly images collected between 2014 and 2016 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1066862). Additionally, we present an example of a colour index time series derived from images from two contrasting sites.

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Short summary
Monitoring ecosystems using low-cost time lapse cameras has gained wide interest among researchers worldwide. Quantitative information stored in image pixels can be analysed automatically to track time-dependent phenomena, e.g. seasonal course of leaves in the canopies or snow on ground. As such, cameras can provide valuable ground references to earth observation. Here we document the ecosystem camera network we established to Finland and publish time series of images recorded between 2014–2016.