1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

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

6. 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 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:

7. 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)

8. 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)

9. 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 ( ).
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.

10. Key Considerations on Developing a Land Cover Mapping Service

11. 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

12. 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)
12/6/2018

13. 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