Global Land Cover Mapping

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Alan BelwardHead of Land Resource Management Unit, European Commisison, Joint Research CentreMexico City, 9th November 2015

Photos A.S. Belward

A growing demand for global land cover information

① Earth system energy, water and material transport studies

② General Circulation Models

③ Biological process models

④ Land surface process models

⑤ MEA negotiations (UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD, RAMSAR...)

⑥ MEA monitoring, reporting, verification

⑦ SDG goal setting and progress indicators

⑧ Official Development Assistance programmes

⑨ Humanitarian and disaster reduction and relief operations

⑩ ...Extract GLC2000 Africa

Mayaux et al. JRC

... and therefore new constraints, new products

① Legally binding contexts increase requirements for full accountability, and accurate (documented) products

② Reliable on-demand product availability and delivery

③ A growing list of global land cover products; thematic maps for inventory and area estimates; biophysical products and direct parameterisation for use in models; measurement and monitoring of cover change; targeted classes (e.g. deforestation) for compliance verification

④ A growing range of time demands – seasonal, annual, decadal and spatial resolutions

L to R: UMD, IGBP, MODIS, GLC2000

2400 km 350 km

35 km3 km

Daily

Annually

The lifespan of all near-polar orbiting, land imaging, civilian satellites shown in chronological order

Source JRC Belward, A. S., & Skøien, J. O. (2015)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2014.03.009

Sovereign States flying Earth Observation Satellites with global land observing capabilities

Source JRC Belward, A. S., & Skøien, J. O. (2015)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2014.03.009

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Finer spatial resolution (but not necessarily finer temporal resolution)

Map fusion(but not necessarily data fusion)

Two decades of global land cover mapping: from the 8 km AVHRR datasets of 1990s to the 30 m ETM+ of the 2000s

Source: Tsendbazar, N.E., Mora, B.

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 20200

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

10

100

1,000

10,000

100,000

1,000,000

1

2

3 4 56

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

2, 13 Cl

3, 17 Cl

4, 11 Cl

5, 17 Cl

6, 22 Cl

7, 11 Cl8,22 Cl

9, 17 Cl

10, 22 Cl

11, 20 Cl

12, 10 Cl

13, 20 Cl

14, 22 Cl

15, 11 Cl16, 10 Cl

17, 10 Cl

Accuracy % Spatial resolution

Accu

racy

(%)

Spati

al re

solu

tion

(m)

Legend: 1.AVHRR; 2.AVHRR; 3.IGBP; 4.UMD*; 5.MODIS 4; 6.GLC2000; 7.SYNMAP*; 8.Globcover; 9.MODIS 5; 10.Globcover v2; 11.GLCNMO 1; 12.FROM-GLC; 13.GLCNMO 2; 14.Land cover CCI; 15.GLCshare; 16.Globeland30; 17.IIASA hybrid GLC.

FAO’s Land Cover Classification System; Setting standards, and a basis for regional classifications

Pesaresi, M.; et al., "A Global Human Settlement Layer From Optical HR/VHR RS Data: Concept and First Results doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2013.227144

Landsat GHSL

Source M. Pesaresi (GHSL)

30 years' global surface water occurrenceSource Joint Research Centre (JRC) and Google Earth Engine (GEE) 2015

10 km Dubai’s new coastlineSource: Global surface water occurrence, JRC/GEE

0 100occurrence as % of valid obs

Conclusions① Progress is very evident: Finer spatial resolution, improved

accuracies, more detailed legends...

② But, one map won’t serve all users; this restricts use to specific modelling communities, compromises regional and national relevance, limits value for resource management, limits flexibility as a source of reference data for MEAs – can we identify converging user requirements though?

③ We still need to invest more in fusing data from multiple sensors

④ We still need product and processing standards – do we need harmonisation?

⑤ We still need to ensure data and products are available and accessible

⑥ We still need to establish operational infrastructures with clearly identified functions

The views expressed in this presentation are purely those of the author and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission

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Thank you!