A new global land cover Map, Glcnmo

Abstract

The Global Mapping Project organized by International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM) has produced a new 1km global land cover data called Global Land Cover by National Mapping Organizations (GLCNMO) as one of eight layers of Global Map data. It has twenty land cover classes defined by Land Cover Classification System (LCCS). Fourteen classes out of twenty were derived by supervised classification, and the rest of six classes such as urban, tree open, mangrove, wetland, snow/ice, and inland water were classified independently using MODIS and/or other source data. This land cover mapping has the following features. (a) Eight periods of 16-day composite 7-band 1-km MODIS data of 2003 year were used as primary source data. (b) Training data for supervised classification were collected using Landsat image, MODIS NDVI seasonal change pattern, and comments from National Mapping Organizations with the reference of Google Earth, Virtual Earth and existing regional maps. (c) Urban areas were extracted using Gridded Population density, DMSP data, and MODIS NDVI. (d) Tree open areas were mapped from percent tree cover data derived from the same MODIS data. (e) Inland water and ocean were mapped by clustering of MODIS datai.