GOFC-GOLD’s Perspective on Current and Future Land Cover and Land Use Observation Activities & Needs Brice Mora, et al. Land Cover side event – GEO Plenary XIII Saint Petersburg, F. of Russia, 7-10 November, 2016

Land Cover Information Needs Continuously evolving notably for - Climate modelling, - Climate change mitigation & adaptation, - Biodiversity monitoring (EBVs), - UN sustainable development goals (All 17 goals), - UNCCD, OECD… => Global and country level needs CCD: Convention to Combat Desertification Global but also national level needs

Global Forest Watch Products (WRI/ UMD) Landsat-scale products Globeland30: 2000, 2010; 2000 not available for download, consolidated accuracy assessment not available, 10 classes GFW: Tree cover percentage, Yearly change from 2001 – 2014, GFOI Guidance provided

Globeland30 Products (NGCC) Landsat-scale products Globeland30: 2000, 2010; 2000 not available for download, consolidated accuracy assessment not available, 10 classes GFW: Tree cover percentage, Yearly change from 2001 – 2014, GFOI Guidance provided

Credits: Le Yu (Tsinghua U.) Tsinghua University: Global land cover mapping portal Landsat-scale products Gong et al., 2013 Credits: Le Yu (Tsinghua U.)

Land Cover Products at Moderate Resolutions Users requirements New LC concept Efficient prototype system 4 major products MERIS FR & RR 7-day composites SR time series from 2003 to 2012 3 LC state products for the 2000, 2005 and 2010 epochs VGT greenness Phase 2: - Cover the 1980s, 1990s and the 2013-2016 periods with AVHRR, Sentinel-3 and Proba-V datasets - Demonstrate the feasibility of a higher resolution global land cover product by generating a 10-20m land cover map, over Africa, using Sentinel-2 supplemented by Landsat 8 datasets Global open permanent WB map BA occurrence Snow occurrence 3 LC condition products Data access: http://maps.elie.ucl.ac.be/CCI/viewer/index.html

Credits: Pierre Defourny (UCL) First 10 m CCI Land Cover Sentinel-2 TOA reflectance composite over Africa Max-NDVI composite of TOA reflectance from all available Sentinel-2 images acquired from August 2015 to April 2016 ( ~32 TByte of data) Credits: Pierre Defourny (UCL)

Copernicus Global Land Service A Dynamic Global Land cover at 100m with 10m hot-sports The Copernicus Global Land Service is the component of the European Copernicus service which ensures a global systematic monitoring of the Earth’s land surface. It provides bio-geophysical variables in near real time describing the daily state, and changes in state, of vegetation, land surface processes and is preparing the release of a Moderate resolution Dynamic Global Land cover layer. In this presentation the methodology and rationale behind the upcoming Moderate resolution Dynamic Global Land cover layer is explained. This layer will complement several global land cover ‘epoch’ datasets which have been created at medium (and high) spatial resolution during the last decade by providing a yearly dynamic land cover layer at 100m resolution. To build this layer, 100m spatial resolution PROBA-V data (acquired every 5 days) will be used as primary EO data. Several data fusion techniques will be applied: First, the 5-daily PROBA-V100 m and daily 300 m datasets will be fused. A temporal filter will be applied to clean the data before extracting several metrics. These metrics together with ancillary data sets (e.g. other Copernicus global land service biophysical products) will be used in a supervised classification using Support Vector Machine techniques. Finally, at a third level, we will build upon the success of previous global mapping efforts and focus on the improvement in areas where the thematic accuracy of the respective maps was insufficient and working with probabilities to perform the final classification of each pixel. The proposed global land cover map uses a hierarchical legend based on the United Nations and Cover Classification System (LCCS). Compatibility with existing global land cover products is hereby taken into account, and extended with providing several percentage cover layers. Training and validation data will be collected from multiple sources, among others by using existing reference datasets (e.g. GOFC-GOLD) and by running a crowdsourcing campaign through Geo-wiki. A first map covering continental Africa for the year 2015, with a first dynamic update for the year 2016 is targeted to become available early 2017. Credits: Bruno Smets (VITO)

Copernicus Global Land Service - Land Cover Provides a series of bio-geophysical products at global scale at mid and low spatial resolution since 2013 Land cover is included as one of the variables in the Copernicus Global Land Operations (C-GLOPS) project (2016-2019). C-GLOPS- Land Cover Annual Global land cover map from 2015 onwards -initially Africa 100 m resolution Proba-V data Build upon knowledge and data available Engaging users and addressing their needs Use available data on biophysical variables and existing maps in addition to time series metrics derived from Proba-V data. Collect more training data in areas that are mapped with poor accuracy Engage volunteers and experts in reference data collection Apply stratification that is independent from the maps using stratification from Olofsson et al. Such stratification allows augmentation of sample sites which are useful to validated/inspect differing areas of annual maps. Validation data collection will involve regional experts.

Key Considerations on Developing a Land Cover Mapping Service

Identify User communities Several policy contexts, requirements, and needs - Climate modelling, mitigation and adaptation - Biodiversity monitoring (EBVs), - UN SDGs - UNCCD, OECD… => User survey => Flexible system

Discussed during GOFC-GOLD Science meeting (31 Oct. – 4 Nov. 2016) Emerging needs Need for LC, LU, change, and condition (photosynthetic activity, snow cover, burn occurrence) information Provide information of surface characteristics at any time to monitor change as it is occurring Using maps as area estimators needs to be demonstrated per theme via good practice accuracy assessment Driven by scientific and technological progress Discussed during GOFC-GOLD Science meeting (31 Oct. – 4 Nov. 2016) www.gofcgold.wur.nl 12/6/2018

Final Considerations Several parallel efforts (GOFC-GOLD, Copernicus/JRC, ESA LC-CCI, Globeland30, GFW… But some user needs not met => thematic, time, and spatial resolutions, class acc. => need to capture these needs Cloud computing platforms - Data cube concept - Build communities around for validation, method/ algorithm exchange Sovereignty and ownership issues Competition with business sector? Guidance on how to best develop and use LC information (documentation, training materials) LiDAR for Biomass but also for surface roughness: useful for climate models