esa_land_cover_2015
created_on
2023-05-04T13:11:58.897171
updated_on
2024-10-04T16:27:33.937569
resolution_description
300 × 300 meters
geographic_coverage
Global
citation
ESA Climate Change Initiative, Land Cover - led by UC Louvain. “2015 global land cover.” Land Cover CCI Product User Guide Version 2. Tech. Rep. (2017). Available at: [maps.elie.ucl.ac.be/CCI/viewer/download/ESACCI-LC-Ph2-PUGv2_2.0.pdf](maps.elie.ucl.ac.be/CCI/viewer/download/ESACCI-LC-Ph2-PUGv2_2.0.pdf). Accessed through Global Forest Watch on [date]. www.globalforestwatch.org.
source
© ESA Climate Change Initiative - Land Cover led by UCLouvain (2017)
license
[Terms of Use](http://maps.elie.ucl.ac.be/CCI/viewer/download.php)
overview
This data set (version 2.07) was created as part of the Climate Change Initiative (CCI), an initiative of the European Space Agency to create long-term, consistent, global data for the purposes of climate modelling. The CCI Land Cover project delivers consistent global land cover maps at 300 m spatial resolution on an annual basis from 1992 to 2015. The Global Forest Watch platform only displays the 2015 land cover data.<br><br>To ensure consistency from year to year, land cover maps for each year are derived from a single baseline land cover map. The baseline map was created using the full record of MERIS images from 2003 to 2012, using unsupervised classification as well as a machine learning algorithm over multiple years of imagery. Changes are then detected between individual years at 1 km resolution, using AVHRR data from 1992 to 1999, SPOT-VGT data from 1999 to 2013, and PROVA-V data from 2014 and 2015. Changes must be consistent for two consecutive years in order to be counted, with the exception of forest changes in 2014 and 2015 which are assumed to be well detected. The 1 km changes are then combined with the baseline land cover map and delineated to 300 meters for 2004 onward (when MERIS and PROVA-V data are available).<br><br>The resulting data have a total of 22 global land cover classes. For the sake of better visualization, Global Forest Watch shows only a set of simplified classes, based on the IPCC (agriculture, forest, grassland, wetland, settlement, shrubland, sparse vegetation, bare area, water, and permanent ice and snow). The full set of classes as well as annual land cover maps back to 1992 are available on the [ESA/CCI viewer](http://maps.elie.ucl.ac.be/CCI/viewer/).
function
Shows the global distribution of land cover in 2015
cautions
A [full accuracy assessment](http://maps.elie.ucl.ac.be/CCI/viewer/download/ESACCI-LC-Ph2-PUGv2_2.0.pdf) is available from the CCI. In general, land cover classes such as rainfed and irrigated croplands, broadleaved evergreen forest, urban areas, bare areas, water bodies and permanent snow are found quite accurately mapped. On the other hand, classes such as lichens and mosses, sparse vegetation and flooded forest with fresh water can be affected by errors.<br><br>Data quality varies by region, particularly as related to the coverage of MERIS imagery for creation of the baseline map. Areas with less coverage include the western part of the Amazon basin, Chile and the southern part of Argentina, the western part of Congo basin as well as the gulf of Guinea, the eastern part of Russia, and the eastern coast of China and Indonesia.
key_restrictions
Terms of Use: http://maps.elie.ucl.ac.be/CCI/viewer/download.php. Advertising/ commercial production with the data must be approved by the team
why_added
Replace our global land cover data with something more recent
learn_more
http://maps.elie.ucl.ac.be/CCI/viewer/download/ESACCI-LC-Ph2-PUGv2_2.0.pdf
id
7ef53170-f931-44a9-bb75-7d3214daf7a6