The first 300 m global land cover map for 2005 using ENVISAT MERIS time series:a product of the GlobCover system

摘要

The ESA-GlobCover initiative has delivered to the international community the very first 300 m global land cover map for 2005. This product is derived from 40 terabytes of imagery acquired by Envisat's MERIS instrument for the period from December 2004 to June 2006. This product has been successfully validated by an independent network of international experts through a global accuracy assessment. Unlike other land cover initiatives, the GlobCover system was developed as an operational service to be automated from the level lb imagery to the final land cover map, including all the pre-processing steps and the classification process. A globally consistent but regionally-tuned classification process was designed to take most advantage of the available data. The 22-classes legend based on the FAO Land Cover Classification System is compatible with the previous 1-km GLC2000 land cover map.